


Dragons in the Backyard at Night

by natcat5



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Death Gods, F/M, Friendship, Growing Up, High School, M/M, Magic, Multi, Sorcerers, Supernatural - Freeform, Vampires, Witches, basically everyone is not human in some way or another, black magic trio, magic trio - Freeform, small town AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-01-18 10:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 90,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1425655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natcat5/pseuds/natcat5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred F. Jones is a normal teenager.</p><p>He’s fifteen years old (sixteen in four months!), lives with his parents on a small farm, has two horses named Freedom and Liberty, and likes football and horseback riding and hamburgers and astronomy.</p><p>Arthur Kirkland is <i>not</i> a normal teenager. </p><p>(In fact, basically no one is a normal teenager, or a normal person. Just Alfred. Only Alfred. Everyone else is something...<i>more</i>) </p><p>Ensemble Cast, multiple pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alfred

**Author's Note:**

> so I'm doing this thing where I don't think about the consequences of starting new projects. I just start them because writing makes me happy and I'm sorry if I have a lot of unfinished work but I want to write things and thus I will write things
> 
> for clarity: Romania = Danut/Dani; Norway = Niels

Introduction

 

Alfred F. Jones is a normal teenager.

He’s fifteen years old (sixteen in four months!), lives with his parents on a small farm, has two horses named Freedom and Liberty, and likes football and horseback riding and hamburgers and astronomy.

His best friend’s name is Matthew, and he’s positive that they’re actually brothers. Both of them were adopted and they’re both the same age and practically born on the same day. Someone probably just got the numbers mixed up for Matt’s birthday on the adoption forms.

He hates politics and vegetables and winter and French class. He likes swimming in the lake with Matthew, playing video games with his other friend Kiku, and horseback riding with Arthur, who he has a little baby tiny mostly non-existent okay actually completely existent crush on.

Alfred is just a normal teenager, with normal teenage problems.

 

Complicated 

Arthur Kirkland is complicated.

He’s complicated in the worst way. Meaning his layers have layers and he’s absolutely unpredictable and can go from bitching at Alfred about fighting in school to walking around with huge purple-green bruises he refuses to explain. He’s a good student but everyone’s sure he’s in a gang. He’s polite to everyone in the town but rude to all the members of his own family. His best friends are the weird Romanian orphan with the arm tattoos and the creepy Norwegian orphan who doesn’t talk, and no one can figure any of them out. He wears two iron rings, a silver bracelet, a stone amulet, and a loop through the shell of his ear. He used to dress like a total punk but nowadays he’s fond of sweatervests and buttonups, even though the jewelry stays. Two years ago everyone was sure he was on drugs, despite the town doctor swearing he wasn’t, and no one thinks that whatever he and his friends get up to in the woods at night is either legal or wholesome.

Arthur has a short temper, but he’s really nice. Especially to animals. Alfred likes the afternoons he and Arthur spend with Liberty and Freedom because Arthur is like 90% less prickly and also it’s funny how he holds complete conversations with the horses. Like they understand. Arthur doesn’t talk much to people anymore, but he chats freely with Al’s horses, with Heracles’s cats, with Ludwig’s dogs, with Gilbert’s bird. And with himself. He has a really weird habit of muttering to himself. But he’s been doing that for years.

Arthur doesn’t have a lot of friends. He’s friends with Yao, Kiku’s adoptive older brother, and he’s friends with Rajni, the town doctor. He’s friends with Francis, Matthew’s guardian, and he’s friends with Gilbert, the police chief’s eldest grandson. The only friends he has who are his own age are Dani, Niels, and Alfred. But he doesn’t seem to mind.

Arthur spends a lot of times in the forest. Like, _a lot_ of time. Alfred knows because the only time Arthur turns his cellphone off is when he’s in the forest, and his cellphone is like, _always off._ For someone who gets so fussy about dirt and looking presentable, he spends an awful lot of time running through the grass with his shoes off.

Arthur has like, a billion secrets. And even though they’ve been friends for over a year now, Alfred doesn’t think he knows half of them. He knows Arthur can’t swim. He knows Arthur has trouble sleeping indoors (which is weird as hell but hey Alfred can dig the whole ‘one with nature’ thing). He knows Arthur considers Danut and Niels to be his brothers more than he considers his actual biological brothers to be his brothers. He knows Arthur and Kiku meditate and drink tea together some days (Alfred pouted for like a week straight when they wouldn’t let him join. He can _so totally_ sit still for more than five seconds). He knows that Arthur isn’t like the rest of the upcoming senior class who are desperate to leave and is seriously considering waiting a year before applying to a college. He knows that Arthur has two tattoos shaped like wings on his shoulder blades, and that they look suspiciously similar to the curling tattoos on Dani’s arms. But literally _no one_ knows about those, and Alfred promised he wouldn’t tell.

Arthur is turning seventeen years old at the end of the month, and he’s not going to have a party, no matter how much Alfred badgers him. Arthur says he and Dani and Niels are going to watch a movie in Dani’s living room like they do for all of their birthdays every year, and that if Alfred tries to throw him a party _he will_ _regret it sorely and might wake up the next morning missing a toe or two_

But Alfred can’t stop himself from planning one out anyways. He sits in his room and muses over who he might invite and decides that, hell, he’ll just invite everyone. It’s a small town, everyone knows everyone anyways, and he doesn’t think there’s anyone that actively dislikes Arthur except for his own family. But he reconsiders because Arthur might not _hate_ anyone but he does have a short fuse and the list of people who don’t usually set him off is quite short. So maybe he won’t invite _everyone._

Obviously he has to invite Dani and Niels, because they’re Arthur’s best friends and they do everything together anyways. And Niels has that huge brother complex so maybe he’ll invite Emil too, even though he’s only twelve. And if he invites Emil then he should probably invite Xiang, and then Xiang’s twin sister Mei will probably come, and then their older brother Lei will come, and if the three youngest Wang siblings are coming then Linh and Tai will come to supervise. Alfred was going to invite Yong Soo and Kiku anyways. And Kiku gets nervous with crowds so he’ll have to invite Heracles to keep him calm. And he’ll invite Feliciano and Ludwig too! Because they’re his friends and also Kiku’s friends and though they’re not Arthur’s friends Ludwig’s older brother Gilbert is. And both Gilbert and Linh are nineteen so if they’re there then the party won’t have to have any adult supervision. Score!

He could also invite Francis and Antonio, though he thinks Matthew would feel awkward if his guardian was there and no one really considers Antonio to be a credible adult anyways. Especially since he still has a tenuous hold on English and lives by himself in a renovated barn on the outskirts of town. Which is kind of supremely sketchy no matter which way you look at it. The only one who doesn’t seem to find it sketchy is Lovino, who spends like, every waking hour at the barn with Antonio. Worse kept secret _ever._

Alfred spends like, four hours planning out the party before he leaves his room to get a snack and comes back to see Arthur sitting on his desk holding up his planning sheet with one eyebrow raised.

That’s another thing about Arthur. He uses windows, not doors. He also walks like a cat, the motherfucker. And he has this _thing_ where he always knows when Alfred is doing something that displeases him. And Alfred has no clue _how._

Arthur has like, a million secrets. He’s weird and confusing and _complicated._

(and Alfred has the biggest fucking crush on him like holy god have you seen his eyes they’re so green they’re like emeralds and jade and grass and trees and-)


	2. Arthur (2003)

**July, 2003**

 

Arthur meets Danut when he’s seven years old.

He’s not impressed.

The other boy is everything he’s been told by his parents to avoid. Dirty knees, torn clothing, a foolish grin, and casual, slangish language made worse by a thick Romanian accent that makes him almost incomprehensible. The child’s friendliness is of no consequence, and Arthur soundly turns his nose up at Danut’s offer to go play in the woods. Simultaneously, he hears his mother’s voice coming from the kitchen, firmly declining Mrs. Dragomir’s offer to show her around the town, and he knows he’s done right.  

They’ve just moved to a small town in California, Arthur and his family, a result of a series of unexpected, happy accidents. Both his mother and father come from good, wealthy families, and both his mother and father are wealthy, successful people themselves. But Lady Fortune smiles down upon them anyways, and in the span of one year, his father loses two great aunts and his mother loses her father. Arthur attends three funerals and his parents inherit a combined sum of several million dollars in of their relatives’ savings, with even more on the way due to property and business shares.

It’s enough money to inspire his parents to get out of cramped, cutthroat London, and his mother’s sudden inheritance of a company set up primarily in California inspires them to move continents all together.

So they move to America, to a large house in the middle of a forest. An isolated, almost-mansion on the fringes of a small, off-the-map town. His mother thinks it’s a perfect environment to raise him and his siblings in, and she can conduct most of the necessary paperwork for the business from home. They’ve got enough money now for his father to focus on his career as a novelist, and both his parents assure him that they’re all going to be much happier now, living away from the claustrophobic, hectic life in London.

The Dragomirs aren’t the first to visit them in that first week when they’re still settling in. The local Priest pays a call, bringing with him two grandsons, one older than Arthur and one younger, and enthusiastically proclaiming that he’s sure they’ll all be great friends.

The younger grandson is too giggly and too handsy and the older is grumpy and rude and refuses to look Arthur in the eye. When they leave, his father rolls his eyes and says _Italians_ with a tone voice that tells Arthur he’d be right to ignore them from this point forward. His parents have always been very particular about only associating with ‘the right sort’, and he does his best to follow their example.

The next to pay a call is the Police Chief, a sternfaced man with long blonde hair and scary blue eyes. Arthur spends _his_ visit hiding behind his older sister and trying to pretend like he’s not frightened. This man apparently has two grandsons as well, one a year younger than Arthur and one a few years older. His father doesn’t role his eyes after he leaves, and his mother comments on how she’s sure the Chief’s grandsons are a pair of fine boys, and that Arthur should get to know them better. He promises to do just that, though the thought of being friends with someone with the Chief’s terrifying face makes his stomach twist.

The following day is when he meets Danut, the boy appearing at their front door with his beaming mother. She introduces them as Daria and Danut Dragomir, explaining that they had moved to town only a year earlier.

The Dragomirs have a similar house to theirs, large and hidden deep within the forest. They’re closer to each other then they are to the town, and Mrs. Dragomir laughs loudly and says she doesn’t know how she’ll get used to finally having neighbours. His father’s smile is thin and strained and his mother looks like she’s trying to hold back a grimace. Scotty snickers and silently directs Cymry and Duncan’s gazes to Danut’s mismatched socks, improperly buttoned jacket, and lopsided haircut.

Fiona silences them with a glare before their laughter can become too obvious, and their mother takes the cue to intervene and invite Mrs. Dragomir into the kitchen, while suggesting the children have a chat in the living room. Scotty declines, saying he’s got stuff to unpack, and Cymry and Duncan follow him, as they always do. Fiona clucks her tongue at them, and pursues their mother into the kitchen instead, eleven years old and perfectly capable of holding a conversation with adult women.

Arthur is left alone with Danut, who looks neither offended nor putout by the obvious snubbing he’s just endured. His grin is still in place, his eyes still warm, with a glint to them that makes Arthur nervous, and his loud peal of laughter at the other boys’ receding backs is hearty and genuine. Arthur is taken aback, and he flinches a little when Danut turns to him and loudly- not using his indoor voice at _all_  -asks if he wants to go out and play in the forest while their mothers are talking.

The offer is tempting, for a split second. The notion of going out into the woods without his sneering brothers looking over his shoulder or Fiona’s disapproving glares. Without his parents constant scrutiny and judgment. But the moment passes quickly, and, in true Kirkland fashion, Arthur turns his face from the other boy and bluntly states that he’s not fond of frolicking in the woods, and he’s afraid he’ll have to decline.

The Dragomirs leave not too long after that. Mrs. Dragomir is still laughing, still smiling widely and making casual jokes, but Danut is slightly more subdued. He’s still smiling, his smile never seems to fade, but when his eyes flicker towards Arthur, there’s less warmth in them.

Not that Arthur cares. His parents and his siblings have made their opinion on the Dragomir family known, and since they’re all older than him, he’s sure that they’re right. Even though they’re no longer in London, his parents’ rules about not falling in with the ‘wrong sort’ still stand. He’ll be sure not to entertain any notion of friendship with Danut Dragomir.

But then he starts hearing the voices.

At first, it’s only at night. Whispers trickling in through his window, invading his dreams until he wakes up with a start, hearing giggling and disembodied laughter. Conversations whispered in a language he doesn’t know. There’s never anything there. Never anything in his room.

At first, he’s too frightened to look out his window. He keeps the curtains drawn, and covers his ears, ducks his head under the blanket and counts to ten, then twenty. The first few nights he calls for his parents, but the laughter and the whispers always stop before they get there, and they’re both certain he’s just unused to their new house.

It gets to the point where he is no longer getting any sleep at night, and Arthur is tired of being scolded for not listening or getting shoved by Scott and Cymry when he stumbles in front of them. He’s exhausted during the day, and it’s making everyone cross.

So one night, when the laughter starts and the whispers disturb him from sleep, he pokes his head out from the blankets, and rolls out of bed.

And calling them _whispers_ isn’t quite correct, somehow. They are feather light touches, tickling the inside of his ears and brain. Hums and purrs and whistles that stroke at his consciousness and jerk him awake with cruel precision. They sound like tinkling bells in the winter time and nails scraping down a chalkboard and leaves rustling in the summer breeze.

The sounds are driving him _crazy_ , and Arthur has had _enough_.

He flings open his window and stares out into the darkness of the forest that surrounds the estate. The stars are out, but the moon is only a sliver in the sky, and it’s not like London, with streetlights and cars to illuminate the night. There’s only a continuous darkness, barely cracked by the pinpricks of starlight, and a bottomless silence. The breeze rustles the treetops and branches, but the silence is still heavy and oppressive, and Arthur shrinks back into his room, more afraid of the quiet than he is of the noise.

But then the giggling starts up again, a shriek of laughter that has him pressing his hands against his ears and doubling over, and he whimpers, tears threatening to spill over his closed eyelids.

It’s not _fair_ that he has to put up with this. That no one else can hear it. It’s not fair that they had to move to a place where there are no lights at night and no other people and the only children his parents will let him play with have a scary grandfather. It’s not fair that he hears laughter in his sleep, cold laughter that makes his head ache and makes his heart shiver. Laughter that _no one else can hear_. It’s not _fair._

Arthur closes the window that night, and doesn’t get any sleep for the next week.

But after almost another month of hearing the laughter, he’s determined to discover what it is that is tormenting him this way. He creeps to his window once more, pushes it open and crouches down, peeking over the windowsill with apprehensive eyes.

The laughter echoes and curls and caresses and grates as it always does, and it sounds less like it’s coming from the forest and more like it’s coming from inside his own head. It’s terrifying, and Arthur can feel tears sprouting in his eyes again. He wants to run to his bed and curl up with the blankets over his head. He wants to cover his ears and wait until the sun creeps back over the horizon and the voices fade into nothingness. He wants to run down the hall and dive in between his parents, take comfort in their warmth and presence.

But everyone is getting tired of him not sleeping. His father tells him he needs to grow up, that there’s nothing to be afraid of and he’s being silly. Duncan and Cymry tease him mercilessly, and Fiona, who is usually his best friend when the others turn against him, has made it clear that she’s quite tired of his childishness.

It’s horrible, it’s making everything go wrong for him, and he has to find out who’s laughing outside of his window at night, and get them to _stop._

The laughter gets louder, piercing and silky and everywhere, and Arthur calls up his courage and opens his eyes, poking his head out the window and peering into the darkness.

He looks, and he sees nothing but trees. Dark, gnarled shapes against the backdrop of night, with overlong grass and tangled bushes creeping up their trunks. It’s a full moon now, shining bright in the sky, and the glow casts everything into new, unfamiliar shades. But there are still no people standing outside his window, laughing at him. There are no giggling children hiding in the grass. There are no bells, no whistles. Nothing but trees, and grass, and-

Arthur startles, recoiling away from the window for half a second, before leaning forward with wide eyes.

_Lights._

Gold-white, red-gold, green-white, silver-green-gold, twinkling and bobbing in the depths of the forest. Little balls of light, dancing and flickering from between the trees.

And the laughter.

The laughter follows them as they bob up and down, as they weave and dance between branches and down within the grass. Arthur watches, his jaw slack with amazement, and he rubs at his eyes, wondering if he must be dreaming.

But when he opens his eyes again, they’re still there.

Arthur considers calling his brothers, his sister, his parents. Calling them to _prove_ that he’s been hearing things each and every night, that there has been _something_ that existed outside of his window. But he’s afraid that if he turns away, the lights will disappear, that his only evidence will fade away into the night, and all he’ll have left is the echoing laughter that’s been tormenting him.

And the lights are _beautiful._ The colours and the brightness are enchanting, and Arthur finds that he can’t tear his gaze away, watching the way they dance and twirl in the night, the sound of their laughter no longer quite so terrifying, more like bells than nails, more soothing than grating.

Almost robotically, Arthur finds himself climbing up onto the sill of his window, his gaze stuck on the bright lights. The laughter is booming in his ears, and it’s hard for him to think about anything else.

The lights dance closer and he smiles as a clutch of them hover in front of his face. Arthur reaches for them, only to have them flutter just out of his hold, the laughter high-pitched and mischievous. He finds himself leaning out of the window, trying to reach for them, trying to touch….

The next thing he knows he’s screaming, crying out in pain with his arm bent awkwardly beneath him and his windowsill replaced by the grass and hard ground. The lights are gone, but the laughter still echoes in his ears, not stopping even as his father comes running around the side of the house to pick him up, not stopping even as he’s carried into the house with tears streaming down his face.

//

The next time Arthur meets Danut, he’s sitting in the waiting room of the town doctor. An Indian man named Mr. Patel, who insists that everyone just call him Rajni.

His arm is broken, has been broken ever since he fell out of his window while ‘sleep-walking’, and he’s just been in for a checkup on the healing process. His mother is in Rajni’s office now, talking to him about medicine and physical therapy and other stuff he doesn’t want to think about.

Arthur is miserable.

The laughter hasn’t stopped, he knows, but the pain medicine makes it easier to fall asleep despite it. He knows that there is _something_ outside of his window, behind his house, and now, he’s terrified of what it is, what it can do, what it _wants_ to do to him.

And he can’t do anything about it. Because no one else can hear, no one else can _see,_ and the only thing Arthur can do is sit here and try not to cry while he hugs his injured arm close to his body.

That’s when the door opens, and Danut enters the clinic.

The Romanian boy is in his usual state of disarray, with the same haphazard grin. It’s a bit more pained than usual, however, and Arthur notes that the other boy is cradling his wrist the same way that Arthur’s cradling his arm. There are rips and tears all over Danut’s clothing, and dirt stains up his pant legs and on his sleeves. He looks like he’s been crashing through the forest, and it’s a testament to how tired Arthur is that he can’t even summon enough energy to sniff in distaste when Danut sits down on the couch beside him.

He curls away from the other boy, clutching his arm tighter to his chest and then wincing when he holds it a bit _too_ tight. The action doesn’t go unnoticed by his benchmate, who turns towards him with a blatantly inquisitive look.

His innocent question, _what the heck happened to you?_ Is met with stony silence from Arthur, who doesn’t _know_ what happened to him because everyone’s said that it was a figment of his imagination, a dream. That there is no laughter, and no lights, and that it’s ridiculous that he just _fell_ out of an open window.

So he doesn’t say anything, bites his lip and remains stubbornly silent. Refuses to speak, to be laughed at for the stupid explanation of _I sleepwalked out my window._ Gilbert had laughed. Ludwig, a year _younger_ than Arthur, had looked at him like he was an idiot. Scotty and Cymry laugh at him whenever their parents aren’t looking.

It’s a horrible feeling, not being believed. Being made to second-guess your own memories and experiences. Being told the laugher you hear and lights you see don’t exist. It’s horrible, and there’s a sick, painful kind of pressure that’s been building within Arthur for the past week.

So when Dani continues to speak, when he follows up his first question with, _what, can’t you remember how you broke your arm?_ Arthur whirls on him with teeth bared and bruised and battered body full of righteous fury.

“Of course I can remember!” he hisses, “But it doesn’t matter, because no one believes me! No one believes that there were people laughing outside my window, no one believes that I saw lights dancing in the forest- everyone thinks I _sleepwalked_ out my window, but it wasn’t- I heard-”

He breaks off, and looks down at his knees, hunching down further.

“The lights tricked me,” he whimpers miserably, “They pulled me out the window. I heard them. They were still laughing.”

The silence that follows is horrible, and Arthur struggles vainly to hold back the tears welling up in his eyes. He’s expecting ridicule, teasing, much of what he’s already been experiencing for the past week and a half. He’s expecting disbelief and mockery, and maybe, in a cruel turn of events, Danut will look down at _Arthur_ in distaste. 

But that’s not what occurs. Instead, what happens is a few seconds of silence, followed by Danut shuffling along the couch until he’s close enough to touch Arthur’s shoulder.

“I believe you,” says Danut simply, a corner of his mouth curling upwards, “They almost drowned me in the river the first week I moved here. Mama says it’s in their nature, but I think Fairies are just _awful._ ”

Arthur’s jaw falls open uselessly, his mind flatlining. He struggles to find something to say, struggles to wrap his head around someone _believing_ him, someone taking him seriously, and- and- did he say _Fairies?_

“It’s cool that you can see them too,” continues Danut, his small smile blooming into a grin, “Are your family sorcerers as well? We should-,”

The opening of Rajni’s office door cuts him off, and both boys startle, turning towards the sound. Arthur’s mother walks out, and pauses midstep, shooting a sharp look at Danut. Arthur curls inwards and shrinks away from the other boy as her narrowed gaze turns towards him. Rajni emerges from behind her, and greets both boys with a smile, walking forward to crouch in front of Danut and ask him how he’s doing. Mrs. Kirkland’s stern glare morphs into her practiced smile; the one that doesn’t reach her eyes.

She’s at his side in an instant, guiding him towards the door with her hand firmly between his shoulder blades. She doesn't need to say anything for Arthur to know that she’s upset. She’s been upset since he fell out the window and didn’t have a good reason as to _why._ Seeing him talking with a boy that he _knows_ he’s not supposed to has just made her crosser.

But the sinking feeling in his stomach that occurs everytime he disappoints his mother is tempered with something else. A spark, starting low in his gut and sending shivers up his spine. A feeling that’s making his heart race and his mind whir.

Danut _believed_ him. He believed him and he didn’t laugh or scoff and he had said, he had said-

_Fairies?_

_Sorcerers?!_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's all take a minute to appreciate the miracle that is me making an effort to update this thing every week.


	3. Alfred (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys are so so so lucky I wrote this chapter last week otherwise there is no way I could have updated today I've got three back to back exams this coming week and nothing is right with the world

Danut Dragomir is _weird._

And he’s not weird in a subtle way either. He like, _flaunts_ his weirdness. He walks around town with a weird tiny hat, has weird satanic tattoos all over his forearms, and wears gloves and combat boots like, _everywhere._ He’s got this strange sense of humour that no one gets except for Arthur and Niels, and his eyes do this thing where they flash red sometimes and Alfred spent most of the last two years convinced Dani was either possessed or a vampire.

_On the other hand,_ Dani is also actually really nice? He’s friendly and helps out with anything anyone asks him too and is the furthest thing from a devil-worshipper ever. If it weren’t for the tattoos. And the combat boots. And the iron rings. And the cackling laughter. And the fact that he runs around the woods at night with no adequate explanation.

Dani is weird, and nice, and unpredictable in a kind of uncomfortable way. Because he smiles a lot but like, you never _ever_ know what he’s thinking. Alfred’s not great at reading people, but he’s pretty sure he’s seen Dani smile at someone while plotting their murder. He could just _tell._ Because of the way his eyes were all narrowed _and doing that really scary red-eye flashy thing._

Dani is weird, and he can be kind of scary, but his parents and little brother were brutally murdered when he was twelve, and the rest of his family abandoned him, and he ended up living alone in that big empty house when his caretaker ditched him. It makes Alfred feel like an asshole whenever he thinks about how weird Dani is, and he thinks the rest of the town feels the same way, because Dani should have gotten arrested for trespassing on like, _at least_ twelve different occasions, but Chief Beilschmidt always lets him off with only a warning.

Dani is Arthur’s very best friend. That’s probably the only reason Alfred pays as much attention to him as he does. The two of them were friends before Niels moved here, and he’s heard Yao laugh about how much trouble the two of them used to get into before they had Niels’s common sense to rein them in. The tattoos on Arthur’s back look a lot like the ones on Dani’s arms, just like they wear the same kind of metal rings, and Alfred’s not entirely convinced they’re _not_ in an online cult.

Cult-ish behavior aside, Dani and Arthur are _really_ good friends. He knows that Dani and Niels never left Arthur’s side during that maybe-drug-addict-no-one-really-knows-what-the-heck-was-wrong-with-him phase, and stuck by him even after he became a social pariah. He knows that if Arthur’s not sleeping on his roof or in the forest he’s usually sleeping at Dani’s house, and that he’s moved most of his clothing and favourite books there. He knows that Arthur and Niels were the only ones that Dani would let get close to him for _months_ after his family was killed, and they’ve been stuck as a mutually co-dependent trio ever since.

Alfred’s pretty sure that Dani knows all of the secrets about Arthur that Alfred doesn’t. It stings sometimes, and makes him pout, but they’ve been friends for a lot longer, and, as Arthur says, are basically brothers.

So as much as Dani is weird, and kind of freaks Alfred out, he’s the one he goes to try and make Arthur’s birthday party an actual legitimate thing.

Unfortunately, the first thing Dani does is raise an eyebrow and say _You realize Arthur hates parties right?_ and Alfred honestly doesn’t know why he thought he’d be _any_ help at all. 

Alfred then proceeds to explain that Arthur absolutely _has_ to have a party because he didn’t have one for his sweet sixteen and who doesn’t have a party for their sweet sixteen and also Arthur is so reclusive and running around the forest naked or whatever the hell it is they do out there is not an adequate method of socializing and he doesn’t think Arthur realizes how many people actually _like_ him and want to wish him happy birthday and how is a party awful if it means being surrounded by people who _like_ you and Alfred promises not to invite any of Arthur’s asshole siblings and he just really really wants to do something nice for Arthur because not enough people do nice things for Arthur and Arthur deserves nice things because he’s kind of perfect.

His mental filter catches up to his mouth _way_ late and Dani’s grinning at him, the asshole. Alfred scowls when Dani does that cackling thing, but it fades when the older boy agrees to help, under _very specific_ conditions.

Mostly he just wants to filter the guest list, pick the music, and help plan the itinerary. He also makes Alfred _swear_ to not sneak in any surprises because Arthur is a tender old man with high blood pressure and no one wants to see him explode. He also recommends holding the party at Niels’s house, because Tino and Berwald are cool and won’t mind, and Arthur will be less likely to bolt if it’s in a place he’s comfortable with.

Alfred asks why they can’t hold it at Dani’s house, since it’s bigger and also devoid of anyone but himself, and Dani just grins and says he doesn’t want to go through the trouble of relocating all the bodies.

Alfred is like, ninety percent sure he’s joking. Eighty percent. Thirty percent.

His inevitable freak out is postponed, however, because then Dani’s grin fades a little and he looks at Alfred closely, head tilted to the side and eyes narrowed slightly.

“You really like him, don’t you _,_ ”he says, a statement not a question, with a weird sort of half smile on his face. And okay, Alfred’s not stupid, he totally gets what Dani’s insinuating, and he turns bright red and splutters that _duh,_ what’s not to like _platonically_? Arthur’s cool. Arthur’s awesome. He’s smart and kind and has really green eyes and also rides horses which automatically makes him superior to everyone else.  _Pssth._ What a dumb question.

Dani’s smile only widens, and he laughs a little.

“That’s cool. I think it could be a good thing, the two of you _,”_ he says with a contemplative look, and before Alfred can ask or deny or splutter anymore Dani’s expression turns weirdly serious, and he looks over his shoulder for a moment before turning back to Alfred.

“Just be careful where you say that, yeah?” He continues, attempting to sound casual, but with a weirdly sharp edge in his voice. “Finding out you like Arthur in that way, or that Arthur likes you, could make…some people jealous _.”_

Alfred is pretty sure something like that isn’t supposed to sound so threatening but his stomach twists painfully and he scowls, taking an involuntary step back.  

“What the hell does that even mean??” He demands, before recoiling with a blush. “N-not that I care or anything, but does Arthur have like, a rabid fanclub? Should I, hypothetically, be concerned about being mauled by preteen girls?”That seems unlikely. Arthur sort of has a bad reputation in town ( _completely_ unwarranted) and most people stay away from him. Sometimes girls are drawn in by the rumours of him being a ‘rebel bad boy’, but they lose interest pretty fast when they find out he sometimes walks around with flowers woven through his hair.

Dani grins, but he looks tense, and his eyes are flickering from side to side cagely. Alfred is about to demand that Dani explain what the hell he’s talking about and to stop being so damn vague, but the words freeze in his throat when the other boy’s gaze settles on him again. His normally brown irises a burning, blood red.

“Stay out of the forest, Alfred.”

And that’s it. Dani’s turning on his heel and walking away, waving one of his gloved hands in departure. Leaving Alfred standing feeling vaguely terrified and more than a little confused.

Dani is so. fucking. _weird._

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got the next five chapters all planned out.   
> Also, I said before this present storyline takes place March 2013, because I though Arthur's fanon b-day was in March? but some sources say it's in April? Idk man do you guys even care that much since Hima never gave him a definite birthdate.


	4. Dani (2008)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize Romania isn't a necessarily popular character in the fandom but I have lot of feelings about him in this 'verse and you all are unfortunately going to have to put up with him an awful lot.

When you turn five years old, your mother kneels in front of you and tells you, very sternly, that your life is precious.

She tells you that every year is precious, every hour is precious, every second is precious, and that you mustn’t use them carelessly.

Your time is only powerful _because_ it is precious, because there is strength in life, in memories, in moments that should come to pass, and giving them up should never be an easy task.

Every time you perform a miracle, every time you break the so-called ‘laws of nature’, every time you warp and change the world for your own uses, you are losing time, losing precious things.

And your mother makes you promise never to forget that.

She can make fire dance along her fingertips and bring golems of earth to life. She can make herself fly and turn nothing into something with a crackle of red lightning.

But she doesn’t do it often. She uses her magic sparingly and when you ask her why, when you ask her what’s so bad about losing a few years off your life if you can perform miracles, if you can be powerful, she gathers you up in her arms and smiles.

 _Because the years I’d lose are years I could spend with you,_ she says simply, kissing you on the forehead, _Years I could spend with you, and your tata. They are too precious for me to use carelessly._

You nod, because you understand that, but you also think about how that’s not the same for you. Your parents are going to die before you anyways, so it’s not like they’d miss you, miss the years you could use. The thirty or so years that you’d outlive them.

But your father understands you, understands the scheming look in your eye, and he picks you up and says _One day, you’ll have someone precious to you like you and your mama are precious to me. And you will never, ever want to leave them. You’ll want to spend all your years with them, and not waste a single one. So when we start teaching you, Danut, don’t use your magic wastefully. You’ll regret the time you’ve lost, once you’ve met that precious person._

_Promise me._

You lock your pinky with his, and promise. But in your head, you adjust the terms somewhat. You’ll be careful with your magic, but only up to a point. Because you don’t think you’ll _ever_ meet someone so cool that wanting to be with them would reign over your desire to fly, to create and destroy, to be powerful. You don’t think someone so precious could ever exist for you, not when you’re already so in love with the magic you’ll one day wield.

So you promise, for your parents, but if you don’t meet this precious person by the time you’re old like them, you’re considering all bets off.

/

**February 2008**

When you are twelve years old, you lose everything.

You lose your _tata,_ your _mama,_ your little brother, and you are pretty sure you’re going to lose your best friend too.

You almost kill him. He climbs through your bedroom window because you haven’t been answering his calls. Because he’s your best friend, practically your brother, and he’s worried about you. He comes to check on you on you, all alone in that big house, and you almost kill him. Arthur’s blood stains your mouth and his eyes are half open and glazed when he collapses to the floor.

You’re too stunned to react. You kneel sobbing over his body and don’t move until you feel a hand on the back of your neck, until someone physically pulls you away and up onto your feet.

You look up and see familiar violet eyes, narrowed, but lacking their usual emotionless mask. And you’re not even surprised. Not shocked that he knew to come here. Niels has always had a sixth sense about when you and Arthur need his help.

Niels pulls you to your feet and you’re ready to run, ready to take off into the woods like the monster you are. And you know if you leave the house, Yao will find out, will find out what’s happened to you, and he’ll make you leave because he doesn’t let anything that’s dangerous stay in the town, stay in his forest…It’s why you’ve been hiding, it’s why you’ve stayed locked up here, even when the housekeeper left and the food in the fridge started to go bad. It’s why you never returned Arthur’s phone calls or opened the door when he knocked. You couldn’t face anyone, not the way you are now. But it’s too late, you messed up, and you’ll have to leave, you’ll have to run away.

But before you can move, before you can disappear, Arthur opens his eyes and rolls his head to look at you, weakly stretching out a hand towards you.

 _Don't go,_ he says, _Dani it’s not your fault. It’s okay._

_Don’t go._

_Please don’t go._

You make a choked sound and cover your face with your hands.

He passes out not long after that, and you trail behind miserably as Niels carries him from your bedroom to your parents’, to a bed whose sheets aren’t bloodstained. You linger awkwardly by the doorway as he lies Arthur down and starts bandaging his wound, not convinced that you shouldn’t leave, that you shouldn’t disappear.

But then Niels turns to you and gives you the flattest, dirtiest look you’ve ever received from him. His expression is accusing, and you flinch.

“If you leave, he’ll be devastated _,”_ he says bluntly, his intonation as emotionless as always, “Don’t even think about it.”

“I almost _killed_ him _,”_ you say, and your voice breaks, another hiccupping sob bubbling out of your throat. “I shouldn’t _-“_

“He loves you, idiot,”snaps Niels, a flare of purple lighting up his eyes, “If this is the first time you’ve fed from someone since you’ve been back, then there’s no way you would have been strong enough to hold him down. He could have fought you off easily, but he didn’t.”

You breathe in sharply and turn your face away, tears still blurring your vision.

“He’ll still hate me,”you say bitterly. And that hurts. It hurts so much and you’ve been hurting for weeks now. Because you lost your parents and your little brother and now you’re going to lose Arthur too.

“He’ll only hate you if you leave him _,”_ replies Niels flatly, even as you stubbornly refuse to look up, to meet his gaze or to look at Arthur, “You both depend on each other, you always have. Arthur will always be your friend; I don’t think there’s anything you could do that would change that. _”_

You bite your lip and shake your head, backing up out of the room, but then Niels is beside you, moving faster than your eyes can track, and he’s got you by the back of your shirt again, dragging you towards the bed.

“You need to be here when he wakes up,” he insists, “Otherwise you’ll both be miserable and I’ll never hear the end of it. I’ve had to deal with Arthur the whole time you were cooped up in here by yourself and not answering the phone. It was annoying and I’m not doing it again.”

And if the situation wasn’t what it was you would laugh. Because you and Arthur have known Niels for almost four years now, and have been trying to get him to be your friend for just as long. He’s cold and obstinate and has a deep mistrust of any and all humans. But he’s bailed the both of you out of trouble more times than you can count. He’s rescued you from trolls and mischievous nymphs and shadows Arthur to make sure he doesn’t get into anything he can’t handle when you’re away in Romania. But Niels still acts like he can’t stand you, still acts like you’re both a huge pain in his ass.

Something’s shifted just now, you think, something in Niels and his relationship with the two of you, but it’s not the time to discuss it. Not when he’s tossed you onto the bed besides Arthur’s pale, unconscious body and is giving you a look that threatens murder if you even think of moving.

You and Arthur have slept in the same bed before. On the rare occasions your parents went to Romania without you, on the days when the teasing from Arthur’s siblings and the harsh reproaches from his parents got too much for him. And the days when you just fell asleep together, before Arthur could go home. You’re used to the feeling of his body curled up next to yours, even though the way you can hear his heartbeat and still smell and taste his blood is making your stomach curdle painfully.

You don’t move though, partially because Niels might actually kill you, and partially because this is the first time since your parents died that you’ve felt anything like warmth in your veins. That you’ve felt anything familiar, anything like family and love, anything that reminded you about that speech your parents gave to you all those years ago.

Dimi is dead, your little brother. He’s dead because of you. But Arthur…Arthur’s still alive. And he…he’s your brother too.

Tears trickle out of your eyes, rolling down you nose to bead at the tip before dropping down onto the pillow, leaving little damp spots on the white fabric. You sniffle, and tentatively take Arthur’s hand in yours, too nervous to move closer, but comforted by the feeling of his fingers laced with yours.

You think about what your parents had told you. About precious people, and about how your life was important, and you want to laugh and scream and cry.

There’s nothing precious about your life now. It’s broken and cracked and stained with blood.

But you think about Arthur and how worried he was when you broke your arm last spring. About how he always follows you into everything, even the things both your parents and Yao tell you not to do, because he doesn’t want you to be alone. You think about how his face was splotchy with tears when he climbed through your window, when he yelled at you and asked why you wouldn’t let him help. You think about how he didn’t push you away when your teeth sank into his neck, how he clutched at your sleeves but didn’t once push you away.

Your life is shattered, a mess, and it hurts to exist. It hurts to breathe. It hurts with every beat of your heart. You’re angry at yourself for surviving when your family didn’t, angry at yourself for what you’ve become, terrified for what will happen next. You don’t think your life is precious.  

But…but Arthur does. Arthur will be sad if you go. Arthur’s been a mess because you came back and wouldn’t let him in. Wouldn’t let him help. Arthur’s your brother, and he loves you.

Your life is precious to him.

You start to cry in earnest, sobbing into the pillow and clutching tightly to Arthur’s hand. You’re still too afraid of yourself to get closer. Too afraid of hurting him again.

“N-Niels?” you manage to stutter out, still clutching at Arthur’s hand like it’s your last lifeline. You look up to see him hovering by the bed, his face completely lacking expression as usual. He tilts his head at you and raises an eyebrow in reply to your summons.

You swallow thickly, still blinking back tears, and drop your gaze. “C-can you stay?” you inhale sharply, another sob building in your throat. “Please?”

Niels seems to hesitate for a moment, something unreadable flickering across his face for half a second, but then he sits down on the bed beside you, idly flicking hair out of his eyes.

“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” he says dully, staring forwards and not meeting your gaze.

“Thanks,” you reply thickly, and then you close your eyes, curling up and pushing your face into the pillow.

It still feels like you’re living in a nightmare. It still feels like you’ll wake up and your parents and little brother will be alive and you’ll still be a twelve-year-old sorcerer in training and nothing more. But you know that this is real, as horrible as it is, this your life now. And Yao might kick you out of town, and you might have to live as a hermit for the rest as forever, but you still have Arthur.

You squeeze his hand lightly.

You still have Arthur.

After a few minutes, you feel Niels flop down beside you, going from sitting to lying down. He stretches out with his back turned to you and after a few seconds, you reach out with your free hand to clutch the back of his sweater. A few minutes later, he sighs and turns onto his side, extending his hand and letting you lace your fingers with his. _  
_

Maybe…

Maybe you have Niels too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have one more hellish exam to go and I spent approximately none of today studying for it because I was writing this chapter that I rewrote three times. I wanted it to still be vague but not too vague but still vague enough. I'm going to be really awfully vague for three more chapters and then I'll start clarifying things. Probably.  
> also I watched the amazing spiderman movie for the first time. That took up some time I could have been studying aha


	5. Alfred (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was hard to write this after writing 'In the Land of Gods and Monsters'. I mean, the styles are a lot different, not to mention the content. 
> 
> Emil=Iceland  
> Matthias=Denmark

Niels is _-_

Okay. It’s not that he’s _creepy_ per se. There’s nothing outwardly very strange about him. He doesn’t dress weird, despite his affiliation with Dani and Arthur. Doesn’t have any iron rings, visible tattoos, or strange amulets. Doesn’t wear leather gloves or combat boots, no strange hat or otherwise questionable attire. He doesn’t cackle randomly in the middle of sentences, and doesn’t talk to himself at odd times during the day. Out of the three of them, Niels _appears_ tobe the most normal.

But he’s still…

Really, _really_ creepy.

It’s his eyes, maybe. Probably. They’re an unsettling shade of blue that look almost purple, and don’t really reflect light. Ever. They’re sort of like bottomless whirlpools of doom and Alfred always feels like he’s looking at his own imminent demise whenever he has the misfortune of meeting Niels’s gaze head on. And he’s not the only one that feels that way. Most of their age group avoided Niels even _before_ he got affiliated with Dani and Arthur’s reputation, and even adults tend to steer clear. Tend to look at him nervously.

And again, it’s weird, because there’s nothing _outwardly_ strange about him. He’s just…he just gives off these massively unfriendly vibes. It’s less _I don’t like you, back off,_ and more _prolonged time in my presence may result in homicide, be warned._ Which is oddly specific but seems perfectly reasonable to Alfred, who gets chills whenever he’s within ten feet of the guy.

So yeah, Niels is…kinda creepy.

But Alfred is _sure_ he’s a good person. Deep down. Because he’s Arthur’s other best friend, and Arthur always smiles wryly and says Niels is the only reason he and Dani still have their heads attached. He also says that they probably would have been arrested by now if it wasn’t for Niels, and Alfred’s not sure whether that’s because Niels talks them out of doing really stupid illegal things, or if he’s just better at covering their tracks.

It could go either way really.

Like Dani, Niels also stuck by Arthur when he was all messed up a few years ago, and the Norwegian doesn’t really seem like the type to stick his neck out like that. He’s quiet, doesn’t like to rile people up like Dani does, doesn’t have Arthur’s matchstick temper, and generally seems like he tries to avoid trouble. But he confronted his fair share of people that year, put himself between Arthur and the world, and that adds hero points to his name in Alfred’s book.

That…doesn’t really make him any less creepy though.

Which sucks, because Alfred’s having a really, _really_ hard time working up the courage to go up to him and ask if he can hold Arthur’s surprise party at his house.

‘Cause like, _obviously_ Dani couldn’t just askNiels _himself,_ since they were _actually friends_ and all. Nope. _Alfred_ had to do it. Because Alfred was the one who wanted to have the party. Or so Dani claimed. Alfred was pretty sure it was just because Dani knew how scared of Niels he was and wanted to see him squirm. That asshole. That weird, sadistic, Romanian _asshole._

He’s hoping he can get around it though. Because the only one besides Dani and Arthur who actively spends time around Niels is a friend of Alfred’s. Matthias, the mayor’s son. Matthias is hilarious and energetic and really fun to hang around, and for reasons Alfred _really_ can’t understand, he’s had the biggest crush on Niels for like, two years. And has been following him around like a puppy for about as long. The entire school had bets on how long it would take Matthias to show up in a body bag in the forest, but surprisingly, Niels actually sort of…tolerates his presence. Sort of.

The point is, Matthias is Alfred’s best bet at a middle man, but that plan falls through basically immediately, because Matthias is apparently out of town for the weekend and _won’t_ _pick up his damn phone._ And it’s not like Alfred can just leave him a message and wait for him to get back to him. _He’s on a tight schedule!_ He needs to get the venue booked and locked down as soon as possible so he can start sending out invites and figuring out food and getting decorations and-

He just wants the party to go _perfectly._

Letting some stupid irrational fear of a creepy guy from Norway or wherever get in the way of Arthur’s party is decidedly _not_ heroic, so Alfred screws up his courage and bikes to Niels’s house. They sort of live on opposite ends of town, but the entire village is pretty tiny anyways, and the weather is nice, so Alfred doesn’t mind the bike ride. It’s one of the benefits of a small town. You don’t need a car or to hitch a ride with your parents to get places, mostly. As long as you don’t mind biking for an hour or so. And Alfred is used to biking to Mattie’s house anyways.

Building up of courage aside, Alfred is sort of kind of hoping that Niels isn’t home. And that he can just ask Tino or Berwald or even Emil if he can use the house. Which is an entirely reasonable assumption! The three of them- Niels and Dani and Arthur –are always out in the woods doing God-knows-what at basically every hour of every day, so it’s totally likely that Niels is out with them right now. In fact, maybe Dani decided to put the sadism on the shelf for the day, and purposefully invited Niels out so that Alfred wouldn’t have to confront him! That’d be awesome. That’d be _great._ That would make Alfred’s entire day. Entire _week._

Niels is the one who answers when he rings the doorbell.

And Alfred totally doesn’t freak out. He doesn’t whimper and see his life flash before his eyes or anything dramatic like that…of course not! He just…trips on the porch because there’s like…a…rock…and ends up on his butt because Berwald clearly needs to work on keeping the exterior of his house safe and well-maintained. Totally.

Anyways, he ends up flat on his butt, with Niels looking at him like he it’s taking every ounce of willpower not to like, turn him to dust with a deathray or something. Which is completely plausible because Niels is creepy as hell and if anyone had an evil lair in the basement with a fully functioning death ray it would be him. Well, actually it would probably be Dani, but Niels would _definitely_ borrow said death ray to get rid of people who irritated him. Like Alfred. Alfred is probably irritating him right now. Just by _existing._

Niels folds his arms across his chest and raises one eyebrow slowly and Alfred scrambles to his feet, stuttering apologies and laughing awkwardly and wow that’s some uneven planking there huh? Wow. _Wow._

Niels still looks less then impressed, but it’s easier now that Alfred’s already started talking. It’s easier to transition into _so hey yeah I don’t know if you heard- actually I hope you haven’t heard since it’s supposed to be a secret surprise and all- but I’m sort of planning to throw a birthday party for Arthur because you know- he’s an awesome guy and he deserves one- and I already talked to Dani about it and he’s cool, and he said he’ll make sure I don’t accidentally invite anyone that Arthur hates, and he said we should hold it here so Arthur will be less likely to bolt because, you know, Arthur doesn’t like parties or surprises, and um, okay, you probably think I’m a dick for trying to combine the two and spring it on him, but I just want to show him that people think he’s awesome, and also I want to buy him balloons, and uh-_

He keeps rambling on like that, and it’s hard to keep himself on track when Niels’s expression hasn’t changed at all. Seriously, his eyes are literally like soulless whirlpools of doom. Alfred can feel his spirit withering away and dying with every prolonged second spent in his presence.

Eventually he just. Stops. The words die away from his lips and he laughs awkwardly before falling silent, rocking on his heels and wishing he could make himself disappear.

After what feels like an _eternity,_ Niels rolls his eyes and steps back into the house, flicking some hair out of his eyes.

“Dani already called me and told me about the party,” he says flatly, “You can hold it here.”

And then he shuts the door.

Alfred spends a good minute standing there with his mouth hanging open, before he sucks in a breath and turns on his heel, cursing Danut Dragomir all the way back to his bike. Evil. He is _evil._

But Niels said yes! Niels said yes and now Alfred can start really getting down to business with this party. He’s got to start calling people, start buying balloons and cakes and banners…

Just the thought of it banishes his bad mood, and by the time he’s on the road and riding home there’s a smile on his face.

There’s nothing in the way of Arthur’s party now. Danut may be weird and evil and Niels might be creepy as hell, but they’re Arthur’s best friends, and now, they’re both on board with his party.

Everything is set, and now it’s up to Alfred to make sure everything goes _perfectly._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got a lot of feelings about Niels and Matthias in this 'verse, but I'm trying to keep them locked up tight.


	6. Niels (2002-2006)

He repeats it like a mantra.

_Don’t be human._

_Don’t be human._

_She’ll come back for you if you prove you’re not human._

And he keeps his face carefully blank, and he pushes back those irrational, mortal emotions, and he’s sure she’ll come back for him.

\--

It’s a year after she dropped him off with his father, and it’s changed, a bit.

_Don’t be human._

_But protect Emil._

_He’s only half human, like you._

_So it’s okay to ~~care about~~ protect him._

He makes them dinner out of the leftovers in the fridge. He steals money from their father’s wallet when he’s drunk and passed out and walks into town to buy fruit. He changes Emil’s diaper and sleeps beside him.

His father is human, and he’s selfish and stupid. Emil is only half human, and it’s the human half that they share, but he still feels like he needs to protect him. It wouldn’t be right, to let a baby die because of their human father’s negligence.

He wonders what will happen to Emil, if she does come back. Emil is not hers, after all.

\--

Two and a half years after she drops him off with his human father, they end up fleeing Iceland and going to America, too many people knocking on their door demanding money they don’t have. They live in hotel rooms then, and his mantra doesn’t change.

_Don’t be human._

_Protect Emil._

_Don’t be human._

_Protect Emil._

He’s seen the worst of it, by now, and he understands perfectly what his mother used to tell him about humans. That they’re selfish, irrational, ruled by foolish emotions. Blind to the language of the world, the light and dark energies, and made dumb by their ignorance. Contemptible, and unreliable. It’s no trouble to not be human. No trouble to shut off those emotions. He has no reason to keep them, when they are nothing but a sign of idiocy and weakness.

He tries to teach Emil the same, but his brother picks it up easily on his own. The infant doesn’t laugh, because no one’s shown him how. And he doesn’t cry, because then they’re father will be angry.

Sometimes his eyes blue-purple eyes darken and purple flame dances along his fingers. Sometimes he feel the burning fire inside him flare up, and he’s suddenly aware of the magnitude of the power that lies within him.

But he knows better. He knows not to reveal himself. He can’t be human, but he has to _fake_ human. Otherwise his mother will be upset, and she’ll never come for him.

\--

Three years after his mother drops him off on his father’s doorstep, he leaves his stupid, contemptible human father and takes off. There’s something warm in the distance, something that calls to the fire burning in his chest and stomach. Emil clings to his back and they walk out of the hotel, walk down the road, and keep walking.

_Don’t be human._

_Protect Emil._

_Get somewhere safe._

He gives all their food and water to Emil because he doesn’t need them. He’s not human and he doesn’t need them. He ignores the weakness in his legs and the dryness in his throat and the sharp pangs in his stomach. He’s stronger than that. He’s not human, so he’s stronger than that.

He doesn’t remember falling down, and he doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but when he opens them again, there are two boys staring down at him.

_Humans,_ he thinks with contempt. Until the one with brown hair says ‘We can totally see the troll that carried you here. We’ve both got the sight, so don’t freak out!’ And the one with blonde hair says ‘Minty says you’re not human, what are you?’

_Humans?_ He wonders, confused.

He turns his head and sees that there is, indeed, a troll standing behind him, and wonders whether his mother sent it, or if the creature was just in the area, and decided to help.

His eyes close again, and he wonders what kind of place he’s ended up in.

\--

He arrives in a small town with a strangely large population of not-humans or humans-with-a-dash-of-something-else and has to update his list.

_Don’t be human._

_Protect Emil._

_Don’t piss off the dragon._

_Avoid Danut and Arthur._

All he has to do to achieve the third one is not be reckless with his powers. Which is a foreign concept in itself, because he’s never been able to do _anything_ with his abilities before. But the forest here is saturated with magic, and there are all sorts of creatures breathing fire and conjuring spirits in its depths. For the first time, he has the freedom to experiment with his mother’s heritage.

The last one is harder. Danut and Arthur, the sorcerer-child and the child-with-the-sight-who-is-probably-a-witch, seem determined to befriend him. Which is ridiculous. They are mostly human, and he is not.

They run wild in the forest, the two of them. Experimenting with the limited magic they possess and bothering the dragon that watches over the entire area. Sometimes he takes Emil in the forest to see the nymphs and he hears them playing. Hears them laughing. He ignores them. Sometimes they knock on Tino’s door and ask him to come out. Ask him how he’s doing. He ignores them. Or tries to.

On a Sunday, Danut asks him to come help them chase out some pixies that are causing trouble by Arthur’s house.

He says no.

On a rainy Saturday, Danut asks if he wants to go see if there’s a ghost living in the abandoned farmhouse.

He says no.

On a sunny Friday, Danut asks if he wants to go see Arthur’s friend, the fox-spirit who lives with the dragon, and hang out there for the day.

He says no.

_Don’t be human._

_Protect Emil._

_Don’t piss of the dragon._

_Avoid Danut and Arthur._

He doesn’t want to do anything outside of those four things. He doesn’t want to go to school, however much Tino and Berwald (humans. humans he’s being forced to live with) tell him he has to. He doesn’t want to speak to anyone (the humans are beneath him. the beings like him, full of magic, enjoy pretending to be human, and it’s stupid). And he doesn’t want to run with the two boys who are still fallibly human, even if they are a sorcerer and a witch.  

He notices though, that Emil is beginning to smile, a bit. Laughs sometimes, when Berwald makes faces at him. No longer shies away from Tino’s touch. Looked nervous, but excited, at the idea of school.

His brother is half-human, but he is not waiting for his mother to come back for him. He doesn’t even know who Emil’s mother is, except that she was probably a nymph of some kind. Emil has no reason to fight his human side, even if he had only seen the worst that humans had to offer before coming to this town.

But Emil starts to smile, tentatively, and as much as he wants to tell him that he shouldn’t, that emotions are weak, he stays silent.

\--

Tino takes Emil into the market one day, and Berwald goes to his workshop. He is in the house alone. It’s quiet, and he stretches out on the couch and closes his eyes.

_Don’t be human._

_Protect Emil._

_Don’t piss off the dragon._

_Avoid Danut and Arthur._

His eyes fly open when someone pounds at the door, and he sits up as he hears Arthur screaming for help.

Apparently Danut’s been carried off by some sort of demon, and Danut’s parents are in Romania, so they can't help, and there’s no way Arthur can run all the way to the dragon in time. Arthur came here because he is the closest one. The closest one who can help. Humans  are useless in situations like these.

But it’s none of his business, and he starts to say no.

He starts to.

But he doesn’t.

He follows Arthur.

(It’s not like he has anything better to do)

It’s his first time using his powers offensively, and he’s surprised at how much damage he causes. Several trees are turned to ash, and the grass is scorched clear away from the area. But the adolescent hellhounds causing trouble have been scared off, suffering burns from his fire, and the nature spirits that always follow Arthur around nip at their retreating heels.

Danut’s got nasty scratches all over, and his foot is twisted, but he grins when he sees him, laughs and says _my hero_ with a stupid high-pitched voice.

He turns on his heel and leaves them, rolling his eyes.

(his heart is pounding in his chest. He's never done something like this before, used his powers liked that, helped someone else and it feels- he feels-)

He bites his tongue until he tastes blood before whatever word he was thinking ofcan finish forming in his mind, and he savagely reminds himself of his mantra. Of his promise to himself. 

_Don't be human._

A week later, one of those nature spirits bangs into his window and tells him that Arthur and Danut accidentally disturbed a temperamental dryad and are being chased around the forest.

He tells the spirit it’s not his problem.

…

He gets up anyways.

He’s not doing it because those two idiots can’t seem to stay out of trouble. It’s an excuse to toy around with his powers, that’s the only reason he’s helping. He’s not going to make a habit of it. It’ll probably _never_ happen again. 

_Don't be human,_ he repeats stubbornly, even as he and Danut drive the dryad off with fire and then watch Arthur console the tree nymphs that they've spooked. Even as Danut beams at him and Arthur calls him  _reliable_ and  _helpful_ and  _a good friend._

"I'm not," he says vehemently, and Danut just smiles, and Arthur rolls his eyes, and he has no idea what to do. 

_Don't be human,_ he repeats in his head. 

But Danut and Arthur are only human by technicality. They are, as the dragon calls it,  _of the wild._ With magic flowing through them and the sight freeing them from typical human ignorance. 

So...it's not terrible then, helping them out from time to time. 

He's not going to make a habit of it though; he has better things to do, after all. 

 

\--

It’s almost been a year since he’s come to the town.

It’s been four years since his mother left him.

He’s ten years old.

_Don’t be human._

_Protect Emil._

_Don’t piss off the dragon._

It’s a Sunday and he’s torching a boggart that’s bothering Arthur. It’s a Thursday and Danut accidently summons mischevious imps that nearly tear his house to shreds before he gets there to help. It’s a chilly Tuesday afternoon and he pulls a troublesome goblin away from them and tosses it into the river.

“Thanks Niels,” gasps Danut, picking himself off the ground, “I thought we were goners!”

Arthur smiles sheepishly and picks leaves out of his hair. “Thank you, Niels. We’ll try not to make a habit of asking for your help, I promise!”

Niels rolls his eyes.

_Don’t be human._

_Protect Emil._

_Don’t piss off the dragon._

_Keep Danut and Arthur out of trouble._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The party next chapter. Woooooo


	7. Arthur (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Party! Woooo~
> 
> Missed last week's update because I was at Anime North. Much apologies. :(

 

His favourite thing to do is lie down beneath the trees and close his eyes.

With his eyes closed, he can clearly hear the sound of the treetops rustling in the breeze, the sound of the swaying grass, the echoing noises made by the various animals inhabiting the forest.

He can sense them too, if he pushes his concentration a little bit. Can connect himself with nature and feel all the other living creatures surrounding him, from the ants and the grasshoppers to the birds and the flowers and the trees.

It rained earlier that morning, and he can still smell it on the breeze, in the dampness of the grass and the scent of loam heavy in the air. It reminds him of England, just a little.

He’s happy, lying down like this, and he feel flowers twining between his toes, bursting up underneath his fingertips and wrapping loosely around his appendages, responding to his good mood. There’s something nuzzling against his cheek, and it’s probably one of the flower fairies- different from the Fae, less malicious, less powerful, and more skittish, but drawn to his affinity with nature.

Something brushes against his chin and he feels something else playing with his hair. Definitely flower fairies then. They always like twining stems and petals through his hair. The number of times he’s gone into school with flowers tucked behind his ears and sticking out from his hair in every direction is embarrassingly high. If he takes the flowers out too soon, the fairies get offended, and while they’re not as dangerous and outright malicious as the Fae, they’re not above leaving poison oak in his bedsheets or burs in his shoes.

He stirs slightly as he senses something new entering the area he’s in. The aura is intimately familiar, a mix of heavy, dark magic, and slightly demonic energy, coupled with an underlying scent of blood.

Arthur blinks his eyes open and begins sitting up slowly, the fairies tittering and scurrying away as he pulls himself upright. A flower hangs down over his eyes from where it’s been tied into the front of his hair, and he brushes it out of the way with a sigh. There are grass and flower stems growing all over his legs, tangling between his toes, and he makes a tsking sound and taps the ground lightly. The greenery recedes from where it was wound about his body, retracting back into the earth, and he stands to his feet, brushing away the pollen left behind by the flower fairies.

A moment later, Dani hops down from a tree, grinning widely, and hopskipping across the grass and over roots to twirl to a stop directly in front of Arthur. Arthur raises an eyebrow and rolls his eyes, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the tree behind him.

“Is something up, Dani? I told you I wanted to spend the afternoon in the forest,” he comments, the _by myself_ hovering unspoken between the two of them. Dani just widens his grin, before shrugging and rocking back on his heels.

“Yeah, and I told you that’s no way to spend your birthday, and that I’d probably crash your splendid isolation at some point,” he replies with a cocky head tilt. “C’mon man, I know you like being one with nature and all, but you’re being unfair to those of us who want to celebrate with you on this special day!”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Dani, this morning when we woke up you spent a good 30 minutes singing me happy birthday in every language you know while Niels baked me that ridiculous double layer cake, and then we marathoned Doctor Who and ate a tub of ice cream. I think we celebrated _plenty_.”

Dani pouts, and folds his arms across his chest, the intricate black lines of his tattoos standing out against his pale skin. “But then we had to go to school and everyone was grumpy ‘cause it was raining and it basically cancelled out any celebrating that we did. So I think we should celebrate some more. And Niels agrees! He even volunteered his house.”

Arthur barely bats an eyelid when Niels emerges from behind a tree, soundless as usual. He used to be able to sense Niels’s aura as well, but over time Niels learned to conceal it completely. A necessity, given the nature of his powers and the negative effect they tended to have on any and all living things.  

“Don’t lump me in with you, idiot,” says Niels bluntly, giving Dani a flat look before shifting his gaze to Arthur, “But Tino baked you something, so you should at least come over for a minute to try it.”

Arthur’s mouth twitches slightly, and he fights to keep his scowl in place. He _loves_ Tino’s cooking. His sister’s cooking tends to, ah, end up on the dry and slightly burnt side, and he’s rarely home to taste it anyways. Dani’s a decent cook, but he’s a very haphazard and all over the place individual and has a tendency to mix up his cooking pots and his potion pots. The last time he had made chicken soup Arthur’s tongue had turned blue and he’d lost the ability to read for a day.

Niels is surprisingly good at cooking, and he’s the one who usually does it when the three of them are at Dani’s house together. That’s where Arthur was first exposed to some of Tino’s recipes, and while Niels makes them well, Tino makes them _much_ better.

He _really_ loves Tino’s cooking.

“Oh, _fine_ ,” he huffs in defeat, countering Dani’s victorious grin with a glare, “But I’m not staying long. Mum wants me home in time for dinner.” _That_ wasn’t something he was looking forward to. He and his family really weren’t on speaking terms, and as much as they tried to sweep that under the rug for birthdays and holidays all it ever did was create a tense atmosphere where they were all just _waiting_ for someone to snap. Usually it was Scotty or Arthur or their mum. Scotty just couldn’t stand Arthur, plainly, and their mum was convinced Arthur was doing drugs or in a gang or otherwise ruining his life and their reputation. Arthur just got tired of his siblings and parents not understanding anything about him. Whether it was his need to be outside as often as possible, his close friendship with Dani and Niels, or his lack of desire to go into business like his brothers and sisters. It certainly didn’t help that he couldn’t tellthem the truth about the town, about the forest, about himself and his friends.

Ugh. Actually, maybe he’d end up staying long after all. They were probably all expecting him to be late to his own birthday dinner anyways.

It doesn’t take long to walk to Niels’s house. The three of them all live relatively close to one another, all of their houses deep in the thick of the forest that makes up the majority of the small village. It’s deep and tangled and avoided by most of the village’s population. There are no paths or trails cutting through the undergrowth, no sign of human interaction or interference. The roots are gnarled, the grass is long and twisted, and the canopy of branches and leaves is thick and near impermeable. The forest is easy to get lost in, violently wild and filled with the sounds of creatures hidden in the shades and shadows, in the dark corners where light doesn’t touch.

But Arthur has practically lived in the forest since he moved here, since he met Dani and Yao and Kiku and started getting in touch with his sight and his powers and his connection to nature. He knows it like the back of his hand, and even though the sun is setting and the light is fading, he easily knows the way to Niels’s. His friends are much the same, all three of them spend more time in the wild of the forest then out of it, and they all make their way through it easily, jumping over roots, vaulting over fallen trunks and clambering through the trees whenever the branches are thick enough.

All of the lights are off in the house as they approach, and that seems odd to Arthur, since Berwald and Tino should both be home by now, and Tino tends to like to keep things bright and lively.

He pauses, planting his bare feet firmly on the ground and allowing his perception to fan out. There’s a brief moment of disorientation as he becomes hyperaware of all the living things surrounding him, and then he’s jerking back in surprise as he’s assaulted by almost twenty different auras inside a house that should have, at most, three people in it.

He’s confused for a few seconds, before the dots connect in his mind and he stiffens, his brows knitting together angrily.

“Dani,” he begins, his voice low. “ _Dani.”_

“Yeah?” responds Dani cheerfully, turning to face his friend. His smile drops when he sees Arthur’s face though, and he takes a step back, hands held up placatingly. “Oh jeez, what’s the matter? Whatever it is, it’s not my fault, I _swear_.”

Arthur’s nostrils flare and he casts his eyes towards Niels, who stares back blankly. His face is impassive as usual, but his mouth is twitching upwards slightly, like he’s fighting back a smile.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he comments idly, shrugging under Arthur’s accusing glare, “You cheated.”

Dani’s face falls as he finally understands the reason for Arthur’s abrupt change in attitude, and he makes a frustrated whining sound, scurrying up to his friend and punching at his shoulder.

“Arthuuuur! You used your perception? That’s so uncool, now you ruined it!” he complains, pouting.

“Ruined what, my own birthday?” counters Arthur, his voice rising in pitch with anger and incredulity, “You’ve got to be bloody joking. There had _better_ not be a bunch of people gathered in that house with the intent of surprisingme with some sort of party. I fucking swear, I will _not_ be held accountable to what I will do to the two of you if you are actually trying to throw me a _bloody surprise party_.”

Dani pales, and he backs away from Arthur quickly, shooting Niels concerned, panicked looks. The latter merely rolls his eyes, flicking waywards strands of hair away from his face.

“Two things,” says Niels calmly, holding up two of his fingers, “One, me and Dani aren’t responsible for this. We’re just the hired help. Two, none of your family members were invited, so you don’t have to stress about that. We screened the guest list. This ‘party’ only has people you tolerate.”

Arthur’s face twitches, and he exhales heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That- that’s not the point, Niels. I don’t _want-,_ ” he cuts himself off abruptly, blinking and looking up with a look of confusion flitting across his face. Arthur looks between Niels and Dani, eyes narrowed.

“You…you guys aren’t responsible? But I don’t… Who the hell else would care enough to throw me a bloody-,”

He freezes.

His mind flashes back about two weeks, to a memory of visiting Alfred and finding that ridiculous planning sheet. He remembers threatening Alfred with pain of death if he even _considered_ throwing him a party. But even then, he hadn’t really taken the younger boy seriously. He didn’t actually think he would…

“It’s not going to be as bad as you think it’ll be,” says Dani cautiously, “Honestly, it’s only our friends in there, and Alfred worked _really_ hard to make this something you’d actually _enjoy._ He um,” The brunette smiles and lets out a little laugh, rubbing the back of his head, “He really likes you, y’know? And he knows about your familial issues, so like, I think he just wanted to show you that you’ve got a decent amount of people who legitimately care about you. So uh, don’t stone the poor kid. His heart’s in the right place.”

A lump suddenly rises in Arthur’s throat, and he swallows thickly, his anger dissipating and his stomach suddenly in knots. He doesn’t…he doesn’t even know what to do with that. His friendship with Alfred has always been confusing to him, and he’s always written it off as the younger boy just enjoying having someone to ride horses with, someone who loves them as much as he does and can keep up with him. He doesn’t like to think about it more than that. It feels too dishonest, thinking their friendship is anything deep and meaningful. Not when there are so many secrets about Arthur that Alfred doesn’t know. That Alfred will _never_ know.

But he can’t deny that he enjoys the other boy’s company. He can’t deny that he likes spending time with Alfred, likes helping him out around his dad’s farm. Likes lounging in his room. It’s strangely mundane, compared to what he does with Niels, and Dani, and even Kiku. Alfred is his only friend that is absolutely and purely human. Not a touch of the Wild in him. And while Arthur loves his life full of magic and nature and danger, he really, really enjoys the quiet afternoons he spends with Alfred as well.

He takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says after a long silence, his shoulders sagging, “Okay, fine.”

 Dani perks up immediately, his smile blooming into a full-fledged grin, and the tense line of Niels’s shoulders relax. Dani hurries forward and throws an arm around Arthur’s shoulders, steering his friend towards the house.

“Oh, _awesome.”_ He says, voice full of relief. _“_ We’ve been standing out here for like, ever, and half of the people in that house have super-hearing or super-smell or super-whatever, meaning they _know_ we’ve been standing out here and are probably wondering what the hell the hold up is.”

“Remember,” adds Niels, walking beside them with a small, barely visible smile on his face, “Act surprised.”

Arthur rolls his eyes and hip-checks Dani lightly, following Niels across the walkway and then up the steps of the porch. No longer touching the earth, Arthur’s enhanced perception fades away, and the resulting quiet feels almost eerie.

“A house full of people who care about me,” he murmurs to himself as Niels turns the doorknob, “Well alright, let’s see it.”

The door swings open.

The cry of ‘Surprise!!” has Arthur reeling backwards, eyes squeezing shut, and he feels himself being propelled inside before he’s even opened them again.

He feels a hand grabbing his, and he looks up to see Alfred beaming at him, pulling him inside and grinning from ear to ear.

“Happy birthday, Arthur!” he exclaims, and Arthur winces at the volume, rubbing his free hand against his ear. Alfred doesn’t seem to notice though, practically vibrating as he leads Arthur into the house.

“Surprise! Hey, are you even surprised? I worked really hard to keep this a secret! I made sure everyone who was invited knew that spilling the beans would result in the death penalty, and I-,”

Alfred’s incessant chatter fades to the background as Arthur looks around at all the people gathered, some of them already pressing forward to wish him happy birthday as well.

There’s Kiku, of course. They had been very close when they were children, when Kiku was still on the fence about whether he wanted to ‘play human’ or not. And Kiku’s patience and meditation techniques had been instrumental in helping Arthur through the…rough patch he had had when he was fourteen. With Kiku were all of his siblings, who again, Arthur had been very close with when they were younger. They all used to run wild in the mountains east of the town, with Yao chasing after them and telling them off for being too reckless.

Everyone is busy now, with school and work and otherwise, but it sends a warm feeling through him, seeing Yong Soo, Mei, Xiang, Lei, Linh, and Tai, smiling at him and sending him best wishes.

There’s Gilbert, an unexpected friend. Their friendship is new and tentative, but there’s something likeable about the otherwise obnoxious young man, and Arthur can’t help but return the grin the albino shoots him. Elizaveta and Roderich aren’t with him, which is rare, these days, but Arthur isn’t friends with them, exactly, so he supposes it made sense. Instead, Francis is leaning on the wall beside Gilbert. Arthur finds the Frenchman insufferable at most times, but he’s both aware of the supernatural elements of the town and friends with Scotty. Meaning he’s the one Arthur tends to complain about his family to. He wouldn’t call himself and Francis friends, necessarily, but, well…he’s not opposed to him being here.

Matthew and Angelique are also here, Francis’s adopted younger siblings. Matthew is Alfred’s best friend, and a lovely boy, honestly. Arthur will _never_ not be sorry about how they first met, and how traumatic it was for the younger boy. He knows that Matthew’s still afraid of him because of it, and he’s pleasantly surprised that he still came to the party despite that fear. He really, really hopes he can make it up to him one day. There’s none of that rocky history with Angelique though, and Arthur laughs and gives her a hug when she runs up and kisses him on the cheek. She’s a sweet, if a bit absent-minded girl, and Arthur will never understand how someone like _Francis_ managed to raise such mild-mannered children. Especially since Francis is one hundred percent human and Matthew and Angelique are…not.

Matthias is here, and Arthur rolls his eyes as the Danish teen wishes him a quick happy birthday and then heads straight for Niels like a slingshot is propelling him. They’re not exactly friends, but Arthur appreciates Matthias’s tenacity, and the fact that he’s helping to chip away at Niels’s deep-seated distrust of humans. He’s similar to Alfred, in that he’s simultaneously unbearably obnoxious and impossible to dislike. His boisterous laugh echoes around the room, and Arthur finds himself smiling at the sound.

Niels’s younger brother Emil is also here, looking uncomfortable. He mumbles happy birthday at Arthur as he walks by, and then crosses to the other side of the room to stand by Xiang. Arthur is pretty sure Emil’s only here because Xiang’s here, but that’s fine. He doesn’t make a point of hanging out with his older brother’s friends either.

Berwald and Tino are both here as well, and Tino rushes up and gives him a warm hug, which Arthur returns. The young couple are remarkably understanding, and even though they don’t know about the supernatural or magic or anything of that sort, they still respect Niels’s need to be out in the forest at all kinds of odd hours, and understand the close friendship he, Dani, and Arthur share. While he usually goes to Dani’s when being in his parents’ home gets unbearable, Arthur has spent a few mornings and evenings sipping cocoa and eating licorice in Niels’s kitchen with Tino.

And finally, at the back of the room are Rajni and Yao, sipping tea and conversing quietly amongst themselves. It might seem strange to have two men who are (allegedly) in their thirties here, but Arthur respects them both immensely, and had adored Yao when he was younger. It feels right to have them here, even if they both remain seated and simply give him small smiles from where they’re sitting.

“Hey Arthur, are you even listening to me?”

Arthur blinks, and turns his head back towards Alfred, who is staring down at him with a pout on his face. He meets the younger boy’s gaze blankly for a moment, before a smile slowly spreads across his face, and he laughs, letting his head fall against Alfred’s shoulder.

“Sorry, no,” he answers with a chuckle, “I was…distracted. By this…by this _thing_ you’ve gone and done for me.”

Alfred stills, and Arthur looks up to see the other teen biting at his bottom lip, suddenly looking concerned and sheepish.

“You’re not…you’re not super hysterically pissed are you?” he asks, his voice squeaking out the question, “Because I know you said no party, especially surprise parties, but I-,”

“Shh, no, I’m not ‘super hysterically pissed’,” interrupts Arthur with a snort, patting Alfred on the shoulder, “No, it’s…it’s good. It’s nice. Thank you.”

He smiles up at Alfred, and the younger teen’s cheeks flush red. He coughs abruptly and turns his face away from Arthur, once again pulling on his arm and steering him across the room.

“So, uh, I know your taste in food is kind of wack so I wasn’t sure what to do for that? But Niels said he would handle it because apparently you dig Tino’s cooking or whatever. So there’s like, a _bakery_ of stuff that the two of them made in the kitchen for you…and Dani was in charge of music so if anything goes wrong with that it is absolutely _not_ my fault-,”

The smile remains on Arthur’s face as Alfred steers him around the room, stopping to talk to some of the guests and then moving on to another area, grabbing baked goods and junk food from the kitchen, and releasing an incessant stream of chatter into Arthur’s ear.

It isn’t until Dani starts the music that they _finally_ part ways. Arthur, firm about not dancing so soon after stuffing himself full of cake, plops down on the sofa and waves Alfred away for a time. The younger teen deliberates for a few seconds, before making Arthur promise to give him at least _one_ dance, and then running of to badger Matthew into doing the cha cha slide with him.

Arthur smiles fondly after him, sighing and sinking back into the couch cushions. Less than a minute later, Dani plops down beside him, grinning.

“See? Not so bad, huh?” He teases, nudging Arthur’s shoulder playfully. Arthur snorts, and shoves back, genuine happiness lighting up his features.

“Yeah,” he agrees contentedly, “Not so bad at all.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, introduced some characters here while still being infuriatingly vague, haha. 
> 
> To be honest, even though it's been like seven chapters, I feel like this whole arc has been like...an extended prologue. Letting you get to know Arthur and Dani and Niels who are, arguably, the main characters in this story. And giving you little tidbits of information without revealing too much about anything. 
> 
> Next chapter, honestly, feels more like the first chapter to me. It takes place at the very beginning of the timeline for this story, and actually explains stuff, I promise. I think you'll all enjoy it. :) 
> 
> And after I post that chapter, I'll start working on the requests I've been given! It's probably going to be Lovino and Antonio first, since they didn't end up being in this chapter and people have been asking after them since the first chapter...


	8. Yao (????-2001)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's commenting and enjoying the story! Like I said last chapter, this is sort of the official first chapter. It's like, right at the beginning of the timeline and explains some stuff. Woo!

They say there are no happy endings for those who have been abandoned by time.

It is she who is the cruelest mistress. The one who sweeps in like a tempest, rattling, destroying, changing, and rebuilding the world into an image completely unlike what it was before. It is she who razes the forest, ploughs the grasslands, levels the mountains and chokes the rivers. It is she who wrests the power from the ancients, from the spirits and the gods of earth, and gives it to the mortals whose sole superpower is proliferation and a frighteningly self-destructive intelligence.

Time has given the world to the humans, and has thus, abandoned those who owned it before. The children of the air, the earth, the water, the fire. The walking trees, talking rivers, and bellowing spirits who once soared freely through the sky. They have been crowded out, rendered invisible, and forced to cower in the few hidden pockets of the world that can still sustain their kind.

‘Their kind’ is a hard thing to describe, in truth. They are diverse and different, impossible to fit neatly into categories. The only unifying feature among them is their ability to connect to the creative and destructive energies of the earth; something that humans and mortal creatures cannot do.

Wang likes the Japanese term, ‘Youkai’, as a catch-all term. Alternatively, he likes the phrase ‘Children of the Wild’; a term used in a variety of different languages and cultures. He is not a child, and knows that few Youkai are, but recognizes that they all share a common understanding that the earth, the trees, the natural energy that sustains their lives, have a power over them. They are products of the Wild, and defer to it, always.

Which makes it that much more painful, more disorienting, to live in a time where so little of the Wild remains.

He remembers, fondly, painfully, the times when he could roam freely in his true form. When he could curl his body around mountains, dig his claws into the earth, launch himself into the air and stretch out, letting the wind blow over his scales. When there were untouched regions of the world, when there was respect for him and his kind, when he could fly and be _free._

But there are no untouched mountains now, and even the most hidden regions would not be enough to conceal the size of his true form. Not with cameras, satellites, and all that humanity conjured to take his world from him. He cannot spin glamours easily, trickery and concealment is not his area of expertise, and he is too old and too resigned to his fate in a world he can no longer fit into.

He is an immortal spirit of the earth, the air, and the flame. He is a deity, a protector of the Wild that gives him power. He is a creature once revered, and now forgotten.

He is a dragon, and time has abandoned him.

He lasted longer than some of the others of his kind. The Western dragons disappeared centuries ago, and even the dragons of Japan have been gone for the better part of the last hundred years.

But Wang, guardian of the northeastern mountains of China, was able to remain hidden, remain concealed in the areas still unpopulated. Remain unmolested by a population still predominantly rural. His coastal siblings were lost around the same time the dragons of Japan were, to the flood of foreigners and rapid population growth. But the mountains, the mountains were safe. For awhile.

He doesn’t know if he’s lucky or unlucky, having been able to hide away for so long, clinging to a small patch of territory. He was safe up until the wars, the ones that tore the people of the country in two. When the red clad men and women flooded his mountains for safety, when their enemies crowded into his valleys.

That was the beginning of the end.

He was stubborn at first. Thought he could hide and wait them out. He curled up tight, blending in with the rocks, the gnarled roots of trees, laying dormant. When the war was over, he thought, they would return to their conquered coasts. They would have no more reason to hide in the mountains that were still Wild.

But it was not to be.

When the war ended, so did his time as ruler and protector. Because the new country that came forth shunned the old world bitterly, and violently. The past was to be forgotten, and only the future was to be considered. His mountains were not left alone, but subjected to a brutal agricultural attack that had him retreating into his deepest caves, even as those he used to watch over turned their backs on the legends that once revered him.

By all rights, he should die. He should wither like the others did, lose his mighty form and dissipate into the energy that birthed him in the first place. Return to the earth, the trees, the wind.

But the wave of population growth and industrialization that consumed the other dragons does not reach him. Industrialization in China means that everyone starts to _leave_ the mountains to run to the coast. That even though he is forgotten and crammed into a tiny area, that tiny area is not subjected to the demolition and desolation that destroyed the dragons in the mountains of Europe.

He is not dead, but the world has changed too much for him to emerge as he once was. It’s not just the earth that belongs to the humans now, it’s the sky, the seas. Everything.

He is 4,000 years old when he gathers up all of his power and crams himself down into a human form. Turns his scales into soft skin and lets his claws grind down into useless nails. Dragons, as a rule, never abandoned their true forms. Pride is their defining feature, and his kind was not like the other Children, who liked to mingle with the humans. They preferred to observe from afar, and give either aid or punishment when they saw fit.

But Wang is quite possibly the last dragon on earth, and his territory has shrunk so that he can no longer fit in it comfortably. Moreover, he’s not even sure he can call it _his._ The human population there might be small again, but they are humans who don’t believe. Humans who do not pay respect to the old gods of the Wild. And the sky is full of the buzzing of aircraft, of humans trespassing in domains that were never meant to be theirs.

He hasn’t flown in almost a hundred years.

As far as he knows, there has never been a dragon that gave up its pride in order to hide among humans. Never been a dragon that left its territory.

But all of the other dragons are dead, so Wang figures he can do what he wants.

//

He doesn’t really have a plan beyond ‘don’t spend another half century curled up in a ball’, so he wanders without direction, mostly. He procures some clothing, chats with some wind spirits who let him know the current state of human society, and stays away from the cities. Villages he can handle, he’s known villages for a long time. Cities are new. Cities are what strangled- are still strangling –the Wild. Cities smother the spirits and energies that make him what he is.

But he likes villages, and that surprises him. Dragons are not the type of Youkai who mingle with humans, but he finds he has a fondness for them. A fondness for the lifestyles they live in their small communities, the few areas of humans that still have a connection, however tenuous, to the Wild. And the perception change, from being above them to being among them, provides him with several insights into their nature that he was never before able to fully appreciate. They are not the mindlessly destructive creatures he believed them to be, a slave to their own ravenous intelligence. They are multi-faceted, strangely social, and surprisingly compassionate, when they are of the mind to be.

He lives among them for a while, decades maybe, and squashes down the constant discomfort that comes from being crammed into a form several times smaller than his true one. The itch that comes from being away from his territory. The disconnect from being among those not of the Wild. He finds himself travelling further than he has in millennia, finding newfound freedom in his current form. He passes the borders that the humans place between countries, and sees the way the world has changed with his own eyes.

He doesn’t seek out other Youkai, partially because he is apprehensive of being seen in his current form, but mostly because the Youkai have scattered, and are hidden deep within the few pockets that can still harbor them. It’s his choice to stay among the human villages, and thus, it’s his choice to remain secluded from the other Children.

It’s with a strange sense of reprieve then, that he finds himself in the care of a batch of baby spirit children.

Spirit Children are part of that strange, ostracized subsection of Youkai that are generally avoided by the higher levels of their kind. The type of Youkai that is born from a human.

Specifically, they are humans who are born with a strong connection to the Wild. Strong enough that their soul is split between their human self and a wild, animal self, formed of their tie to the natural energy of the world.

In South Korea, he picks up a small boy with slitted eyes and tiger ears, abandoned and left to die. He’s excitable and terrified, but he’s lonely and vulnerable, and it only takes a few soft words from Wang to have the child clinging to his neck like he’s his last lifeline.

Spirit Children have always been rare, but have dwindled into something akin to nonexistence in the last few centuries. Humans no longer have a strong enough tie to the Wild to foster their birth. And if they are born, their parents have an instinctive revulsion, a fear that will cause them to desert them before their abilities even manifest.

The child is probably a year old, if that, and Wang doesn’t know of any Youkai in the area that he could potentially leave him with.

So he keeps him.

It’s strange, being in charge of another creature. Someone helpless, who clings to him tightly and wails whenever he’s not held. Who doesn’t treat him with the cautious respect that Youkai ought to, nor with the wary politeness that the humans he encounters do.

The child clings to him, _loudly,_ and babbles at him in gurgles and growls while playing with his ponytail and happily nuzzling his face.

It’s…an experience.

Wang leaves South Korea, which has a disquieting number of sprawling cities, and heads for places he knows still have dense jungle. Places he can safely harbor a half feral child while trying to figure out what to do with him.

He ends up in Vietnam, and crouches in the depths of the jungle while trying to teach a half-Wild toddler to hide his ears well enough to be able to conceal his nature in a human village. Because the child _is_ half human, and Wang feels, strongly, that he shouldn’t forget this. That just because he is purely a creature of the Wild, he can’t expect this child to be raised the same.

It is here that Wang finds himself the guardian of two more children, the same kind as the Korean one. It’s possible that they sensed him, sensed a child like them, and followed the feeling. Or possible that they sensed Wang, and sought him out because dragons have always been protectors. Though Wang has been so long crammed down into this human body, he doubts he gives off a very dragon-like aura anymore.

Regardless, a girl with feathers coating her neck and arms and a boy with hard leathery skin in patches on his legs and torso emerge from the jungle one day, and the Korean boy’s possessive hissing is not enough to drive them away.

The girl is older, or so she tells him, and Wang is surprised to hear her speak. Spirit Children are so quickly abandoned and instinctively shunned, it’s rare for them to be able to speak human languages if they’ve been on their own. But she can, and while her Vietnamese is halting and punctuated with whistles and tweets, Wang understands her plea to help her and her friend.

When she says ‘help’, she just means help them get water and food for a time, they’re both thin and starving, but Wang knows there’s no way he can abandon them. Leave them on their own.

And so, one child becomes three.

The expansion of his group makes names a necessary thing, particularly because the girl speaks a human language and probably will wish for one eventually. He names his Korean child Yong Soo, and the other boy Tai, and lets the girl name herself. She chooses Linh.

He tells all of them to just call him ‘Teacher’, and is strangely pleased when it’s the first word that Yong Soo says.

They stay in Vietnam for just under two years, and Yong Soo learns to hide his ears but the stripes on his face never fade and his claws and fangs reemerge at the slightest provocation. Tai doesn’t put much effort into concealing his Wild sides, because his leathery skin is not as striking as fur or feathers, and he never feels threatened enough for his tusks to emerge. Linh’s better at keeping her feathers and talons at bay, but dislikes doing so, and doesn’t understand why Wang’s trying to help them ‘fake’ being human.

It’s hard to explain to a seven year old that it’s not ‘faking’ anything. They _are_ human, or at least half so, and he doesn’t want them to forget that part of themselves. Especially in a world that _belongs_ to humans.

 _You’ll be safer as humans then you would be as Youkai,_ is what he wants to say. But Wang doesn’t want them to fear being Youkai either. If at all possible, he wants them to be able to accept both sides of themselves.

//

Wang decides to return to China because he misses it, simply put. The jungles of Vietnam are great for hiding in, but he can never shake the feeling of vines tangling around his horns and his feet sinking into vast swamps. Even compacted into human form, the jungles are too claustrophobic for a dragon of the mountains.

So he brings his trio of Spirit Children to China, and introduces them to his homeland.

Yong Soo takes to it like he takes to everything else; with boundless enthusiasm and loud exclamations of how much he _loves_ Teacher. He immediately decides that if China is where Teacher is from, then China must be the best place on the planet (tied with South Korea of course), and swears that he loves being there.

Linh takes to it with a level of apprehension that Wang expected. She’s been in Vietnam all her life, and the change in location makes her nervous. But Vietnam was not kind to her, especially before she met Wang, and she looks like she’s willing to give China a chance.

Tai has an almost unsettling good nature that causes absolutely nothing to faze him. He takes to China like he takes to everything else, with a smile. Wang knows that Tai left Thailand for Cambodia when he was very young, and then left Cambodia for Vietnam. He has the sneaking suspicion that Tai is less content and more resigned to go along with whatever life throws at him. He’s always smiling, but he never seems _happy._ It’s a scary mentality to see in a boy who can’t be older than six.

Wang thinks that finding a permanent place to settle down in would help. A place that would be safe for them, like the jungle was, but with more of a balance between their Wild and human sides. The idea of finding a ‘home’, so to speak, for his adopted children, appeals to him. But it’s hard to take seriously when Linh sprouts feathers whenever she gets angry and Yong Soo has no control over his shifting whatsoever.

For the time being, Wang settles into a small forest area not to far from a village. He can let Yong Soo run wild, let Linh flit about the trees, let Tai sink his feet into the earth, but also occasionally bring the older children into the village. Linh is still sullen when interacting with humans, but Tai is pleasant enough, even though his smiles are still flat.

They’re not there long, maybe a month at the very most, when a haggard looking woman stumbles up to Wang when he’s walking from the village to the forest, Linh at his side. He knows immediately that she’s Youkai, a forest spirit of some kind, just hiding in the skin of a human. He’s less concerned with her, however, than with the child on her back and the two others swaddled in her arms.

She collapses to her knees in front of him and calls him _Lord Dragon_. Like he always is, Wang is momentarily embarrassed at being seen dressed up as a human, but the tickle of shame is chased away when she begs him to take in the children she has just saved from being drowned.

She reveals the two children in her arms, babies, both covered in reddish scales, and explains how she had been taking care of the first child, the one on her back, for a year, and she’s a _tree_ spirit and has no business raising Spirit Children especially ones born of _fire_ and she knows the Children of the Wild have to stick together in this world of humans but she _can’t do this anymore_ and she _especially_ can’t deal with two _more_ and _Lord Dragon won’t you please take these children?_

Three children becomes _six._

The older one, barely a year old, he names Lei. The twin babies, a girl and a boy, he names Mei and Xiang. The three of them cause something old and hot to stir within Wang’s chest, and he recognizes with a note of excitement that they all are dragonoid spirits.

The problem, however, is that all three of them have fire in their cores. It’s not entirely uncommon for Spirit Children to be tied to the elements in some way, and he already suspects that Linh has a degree of control over wind and Tai might gain some control over earth, but fire is a hard thing to hide. Flames blossom up wherever Lei’s feet touch, and when Mei screams out hungrily dark grey smoke billows from her skin. They’re babies, with no control over their powers, and the current place Wang is residing in with his children is far too close to a large village. For the safety of them all, particularly the new editions to their family, it seems as if they are going to have to move once again.

He has little time to stew over the issue, little time to weigh his options and decide where to move his ragtag band next. Because merely a few days after he adopts the three siblings, Wang is visited by two more Youkai.

He senses them before he sees them. They both have auras that are strong, pulsing, completely different from that of the tree spirit. One is like an old fire, slow-burning and deeply hot, and the other is like water in a river, cold and churning violently. There’s power in both of them, and Wang leaves his children to go out and meet the visitors, rather than have them come to him. Powerful Youkai, he knows quite well, tend to be, at best, dismissive of those who are born to humans. And violent, at worst. He doesn’t want to risk them attacking his children.

Seeing the visitors, however, assuages his fears somewhat. One of them, the one like an old fire, is wearing a human form, and the other one is very, very young. A kitsune, with two black-tipped tails.

The former bows low when he sees Wang, smiling as he does. He looks and smells foreign, with dark skin and strange attire and a scent filled with unfamiliar spices and herbs. The fox child remains still and standing, its deep brown eyes fixed upon Wang. It’s only when the dragon shifts his eyes to meet the child’s gaze that the latter drops his eyes to the ground, tail lowered with respect.

The man introduces himself as a Djinn, and apologizes for encroaching on Wang’s territory. He claims to have had business in Hong Kong, only to come across a young kitsune, lost and without a tribe, and had postponed his business to help the child out.

“He’s from Japan,” he explains, while the child in questions shifts on its paws, gaze still lowered, “He heard there was still a dragon in the mountains of China, and that it was providing aid to young Youkai.”

Wang blinks, and resists the urge to drag a hand down his face. He’s not too pleased with the idea that he’s creating a reputation for himself. There’s still something stomach-turning about being seen in a human form, about leaving his territory, about interacting with humans, and he can’t imagine that all the stories spreading about him are good.

Before he can reply, however, the kitsune growls, low in his throat, and his head snaps up, eyes burning.

 _I had heard there was a dragon yes,_ he says, his words passing directly into Wang’s mind, _but I did not know it was one who had given up its pride to hide as a human._ The child’s gums curl back from its teeth, fangs bared in a snarl.

The words don’t hurt as much as they would have if Wang hadn’t been expecting them, and all he does is sigh. He could, potentially, put on a show of power. He could exert his authority as someone at the very top tier in the hierarchy of the Wild. Could flex his fire and show the child that being in human form did not mean he deserved less respect. He folds his arms across his chest, smoke curling up from where grass is burning under his bare feet. Wang let’s his displeasure waft off his skin, making the air smell like brimstone and forest fires, eyes flashing pure molten gold.

But the Djinn beats him to it, cuffing the fox on the back of its head and scowling down at him.

“Show some respect, child.” He says sternly, “You’re young, you’ve seen nothing of this world. Wearing a human skin is a smart way to keep safe, as I’ve told you time and time again.”

The fox child turns his head away, fur still bristling, eyes still dark. The Djinn clicks his tongue and turns his to face Wang again, an apologetic smile on his face.

The man explains that the child is not a pure kitsune, but has one human grandparent. His father had lived alone because of it, and his mother had been banished by her tribe when she chose to stay with him. Both of his parents are dead now, and he wants to try and join his mother’s old tribe, since it’s clear he’s more kitsune then human.

“Kitsune with human blood never grow past one tail,” adds the Djinn with a contemplative look towards the child, “But as you see, the child has already grown his second. He believes you have the power to help him grow another, and that having at least three tails will give the tribe no reason to reject him.”

Wang raises an eyebrow at that, and returns his gaze to the child in question. The sullen, stubborn look is still on his face, but his dark eyes flicker up towards Wang, shining with something desperate and pleading. It stirs something within the old dragon, and he feels something heavy settle within his chest. Kitsune are similar to dragons, in their power, high-rank, and avoidance of humans. Kitsune also often have an affinity for fire, fire and lightning being their two main elements. But where Wang is pure fire, and wind, and earth, the elements a direct part of him, kitsune only use their fire as fuel. It’s an inner fire, that lends power to their spirit abilities. They communicate telepathically, use forcefields, shields of invisibility, and raw spirit energy. Their magic is of a very different nature to that of dragons.

“I am sorry, child,” says Wang softly, leaning down with his hands on his knees so that they’re at eye level, “But Kitsune tails develop with time and experience. There’s nothing that I can do to make you grow one faster. You need to be patient.”

The child’s fur bristles, and his tail rises, ears flattened back against his head.

 _I don’t_ have _time!_ He snarls, gums curling back from his front fangs, _I need-_

The young fox freezes, remembering himself, remembering the company he’s in, and stumbles back a few steps, tail lowering and gaze dropping to the ground.

The Djinn sighs, and folds his hands into his sleeves, looking at the child with pity.

“The problem is that he has nowhere to go,” he states flatly, “He speaks well, but he’s young; barely five years old, if that. And while kitsune may keep to themselves within their tribes, just being part of a network with other kitsune increases their power. They may be solitary, but they never live alone, or completely isolated.”

Wang transfers his gaze to the child again, who is hunched in on himself, muscles tense, and eyes furious and defeated, still directed towards the ground. Kitsune, like dragons, are very proud, and living with the shame of human blood couldn’t be an easy thing for such a young child. Most youkai tended to age fast mentally, and the young fox already seems older than his supposed five years.

But for that reason, Wang is not sure he can take him in. Kitsune are not Spirit Children. They are more of the spirit world, less of the physical world, and tend to be dismissive of any and all they deem beneath them. They are certainly the type of Youkai that would look down on Spirit Children, and Wang doesn’t doubt that the trouble the young fox’s human heritage has brought him would only him _more_ intolerant of human-born Youkai.

“That said,” says the Djinn, suddenly speaking again after the long silence that had stretched between all of them. “I am here on my own business as well. If you’ll hear it, Lord Dragon, I have an offer for you. One that may also benefit our young friend here.”

The child lifts his head slightly, and Wang turns towards the Djinn with an appraising look.

The man starts to explain, starts to talk about how he had originally lived in a small town in California – in the United States – and had recently moved back there only a few years previous. He talks about how a very powerful energy has settled there, deep in the mountains, and that he doesn’t know what it is, but that it has the potential to attract all manner of Youkai.

“The energy it sends out doesn’t reach very far just yet,” he explains, “But I think its range will increase. Lord Dragon, if what I’ve heard is true, you are trying to raise your charges to be able to live both Wild, and amongst humans. The town I’m from is surrounded by a dense forest, and beautiful mountains. That hidden energy muffles the sounds, makes the woods deeper, denser, harder for humans to get into. Protected. It’s a safe place for Youkai, no matter what kind you may be, and close to the town should you choose to interact with the humans there.”

The offer intrigues Wang, particularly the bit about the forest being protected, but he’s suspicious all the same.

“You came halfway around the world to offer me a place in your territory?” he asks, incredulous. “There must be something you’re not saying. Why should I follow, or trust you?”

The Djinn smiles, and then sighs, running fingers through his hair. “I’m older then I look, but I come from a long line. My power is much diminished, and if this energy gets stronger, if it starts attracting powerful Youkai, I fear I won’t be able to keep them out and protect the citizens of the town. And that is what I do, Lord Dragon, I protect the humans in that town.”

The man’s gaze hardens, and his dark eyes flash a bright, orange red, looking like small flames. “I’m asking if you will come be the guardian of the forest. If you’re there, malevolent Youkai will stay away, and peaceful Youkai will feel safer. _I’ll_ feel safer. Dragons may not have interacted with humans, but they almost always protected them. Forgive me if I’m overstepping my boundaries, but I believe you’d benefit from this. You, and your children.”

His gaze then breaks from Wang’s and the Djinn turns to look at the kitsune, who looks up at him with wary, distrusting eyes.

“I know you have no love of humans,” he says gently, his tone softening, “But as I said, the forest is protected. Even if you’re alone, you’ll be safe, and you’ll have myself, and potentially a dragon, there if you need help. I think it would be beneficial for you to come as well.”

The offer is…tempting seems like the wrong word. _Perfect_ is a bit much, Wang thinks, but his heart is racing all the same. Because there’s a reason he’s taken in so many children, enjoys caring for them so much. Dragons are guardians and protectors. It is what they are made to be. The humans forgot him and Wang left his mountains and he’s felt empty ever since. The children help, they make him happy, but the idea of having a real territory to protect again, an area with mountains and a forest where they can all be safe…

“And how would we get there? All the way to America?” he asks after a few minutes of silent contemplation, keeping his tone flat, his face giving nothing away. “Travel is easier for humans now, but not for Youkai. We have none of the paper and numbers that are no required to get on boats and…and planes.”

 _Planes._ Wang has to stop himself from shuddering just _saying_ the word. Ugh. _Planes._

“If you’ll place your trust in me, I can carry you all in my lamp,” says the Djinn, patting the bulge at his waist, “And my kind is very much intertwined with humans. We have networks capable of coming up with the necessary ‘paper and numbers’ to pass through human society. If you choose to give your children human lives. If you want to send them to school- anything like that. I can provide you with the needed documentation.”

 _Too good to be true._ Wang sucks in a breath. It’s a lot. A lot to take in. His senses are not going haywire, he’s not picking up any bad vibes from the Djinn, and he’s certain that the man is telling the truth. There really isn’t any reason not to accept.

Once again, Wang turns to look at the fox child, who is looking between them, conflicted.

“And what about you, child? Will you go?” He asks, startling the child into looking at him. The fox stares at him for a few seconds, before shaking its head.

 _N-no,_ he says, sounding unsure, _My- The tribe will never accept me if I go halfway around the world. To a forest by a human village._

“The tribe won’t be able to accept you if you die. Which you probably will on your own.” Says the Djinn bluntly, and the kitsune flinches.

Wang closes his eyes briefly, before reopening them, stifling a sigh.

“Which tribe did you belong to?” he asks, the fox returning his gaze to him. The child tenses.

 _Honda_ he replies tersely, _But I am not allowed to use that name._ Wang nods, and continues.

“Well consider this. If you come with us, you will be able to grow your third tail in safety. If you do so, I will return with you to your tribe and vouch for your…purity, so to speak, in person. I won’t come in human form, either.”

The fox’s eyes widen in shock. He looks back and forth between Wang and the Djinn for a few seconds, conflict evident in the tense line of his body and the twitching in his muzzle. Finally, the child stills, and he nods once.

“Excellent!” exclaims the Djinn, clapping his hands together. “I’m so glad this has worked out so well for all of us. Now that the business is settled, allow me to wave away some of the stiffness and formality in the air. You _will_ all be stuffed in my lamp after all.”

The man smiles, and bows low again. “My name is Rajni. I’m a Djinn, and a doctor. I’m delighted to be welcoming the both of you- and all of your children, Lord Dragon, into my home.”

Wang finds himself smiling slightly, and he returns the bow, though not as low.

“I’m very glad to have received your offer,” he replies, “I go by many names, but Wang is what I currently call myself in this human form.”

A thought occurs to Wang then, and he turns to look at the fox child, the fox child who is being denied use of his family name, because he’s one quarter human.

“But you child,” he says softly, “I can’t call you Honda, so if I call you anything, it will have to be your first name. Such familiarity doesn’t exist between us, I know, so to make it fair, you may call me by _my_ first name. If you will do me the honour of giving me your name, you may call me Yao.”

The kitsune looks like he’s been struck by a thunderclap, and he stares open-mouthed at the drago. Wang offers him a smile, and the fox lowers his head immediately.

A long silence stretches between them, the kitsune staring at the ground, his tail thrashing in agitation.

Finally, after minutes have passed, he lifts his head.

 _Kiku,_ he says, his voice quiet. _It’s Kiku._

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for rushed ending. I have to go help the mother set up for father's day. Hope you enjoyed the chapter regardless!


	9. Lovino (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The most requests I got were for Antonio, or Spamano. So have a chapter about Lovino and Antonio! I am now /finally/ getting to the requests.

 

This is how Lovino’s day goes.

 

At 5:00 AM, he’s woken up by his thrice-damned Grandfather getting up to go work out in the fields. The man is as subtle as a pack of elephants, and enjoys greeting the day with loud raucous singing in Italian and playing percussion on the pots in the drainboard. Fucking A.

At 5:30 AM, his grandfather’s booming voice is joined by that fucking Spaniard’s. Every single morning, Lovino regrets ever getting that moron a job in his family’s farm. How the hell the asshole can sing in Italian when he can barely speak English is beyond him.

By 6:00 AM, he’s managed to fall back asleep. Both of the early birds having gone far enough out into the fields that their voices aren’t loud and grating and horrible.

At 7:00 AM, he remembers that, technically, _he’s_ supposed to be helping his grandfather out in the field as well. Fuck.

At 7:06 AM, he trips over his brother, who fell asleep on the way back from the bathroom and is curled up on the floor drooling.

At 7:28 AM, Lovino finally stops screaming and Feliciano finally stops crying and they get into a minor slap fight over who gets to use the shower first. The little shit never did adhere to the whole ‘respect your elders’ thing.

At 8:00 AM, Grandpa and ‘Toni- Grandpa and that _damned Spanish bastard_ come in for breakfast. Lovino unsuccessfully tries to escape to another reality where he’s not sharing a table with three loud, obnoxious, airheads.

At 8:30 AM, Grandpa leaves to drive Feli to school. Lovino is stuck washing the dishes and making sure that moron doesn’t break anything as he attempts to dry them. Then he and Antonio go out and finish the rest of the morning chores.

That’s it.

That’s all they do.

Absolutely nothing else.

There is absolutely _nothing else_ that goes on between them when they are alone in the house why the fuck would you even-?

At 9:45 AM, Lovino finishes smoothing the concealer Elizaveta lent him over the curve of his neck and walks to the bus stop to catch a ride to the community college the next town over. That stupid Spanish bastard follows him, of course. The damn stalker. As if Lovino can’t walk to the freakin’ road alone!

Actually. Fuck. The way these woods are, he’d rather not try it. Goddamn, he’d probably get mauled by-by _something_ and be left a mutilated corpse on the side of the road. And then Feliciano would cry and everyone else would pretend to cry and ‘Tonio would have no idea what to do with himself. Lovino has absolutely _zero_ faith in Rajni’s ‘If you act like you can’t see them they will leave you alone’ advice. Haha, hell no. Danut _gleefully_ told him stories of Arthur getting chased up and down the forest because…because… _because._

The point is, that is not the life Lovino wants to live. Lovino _does not want to turn into Arthur Kirkland._

So he lets Antonio walk him to the bus stop so that any undesirable fucker living in the leaves and the grass will know to give them wide berth. Literally the _only_ upside to having a boyfriend who is-

Of, of having a _friend_ who is-

S-strong. And tall.

A friend who is _tall._

By 5:00 PM, he’s usually back from his classes for the day.

And that’s.

That’s when the _trouble_ starts.

Because, the thing is, Lovino Vargas is not a fool. Unlike his airheaded younger brother, he _gets_ stuff. He can read the atmosphere. He can figure shit out. He doesn’t hang around scary German dudes and their creepy older brothers. He’s not best friends with a barely human Japanese kid and he doesn’t hang around with obnoxious blonde douchebags and their unsettling British boyfriends. He stays the hell away from _all_ the weird people in the town. And there are a lot. God, there are a fucking lot. 

The thing is, Lovino _knows._ Oh yeah, he knows all right. He knows all about this weird ass town and its weird ass people and all the shit in the forest and up the mountain and he knows to stay far, _far_ away from all that crap.

But Jesus, avoiding all of the weird shit that’s everywhere is like running a fucking obstacle course.

Because that’s what Rajni said. If he didn’t want to get involved in any of this, he just had to stay away from it. Had to pretend like he couldn’t see it. Everything would leave him alone if he acted like he was still sightless and shit. Like he still had no idea what was going on.

Which is _so_ much fucking easier said then done.

The problem is, they live a little bit out of the way. A little far away from town. Right on the edge of the forest, where there aren’t a lot of people. And not a lot of people means the weird shit, so much weird shit, all. the fucking. time. The second he gets home from school, it’s like he’s playing dodgeball, and the balls are random supernatural occurrences.

If it’s not goddamn Danut Dragomir riding through the fields on some sort of fanged-horse thingit’s bloody Feliks flying through the air on some magical _pony_ or one of Kiku’s siblings setting something on fire before parkouring away over the treetops.

And if he stays inside and locks all the doors and windows to avoid seeing that shit, then his fucking Grandpa will end up inviting one of them over for dinner. Usually Gabriel, the exchange student from Seborga who is apparently distantly related to the Vargas family, and who is _also_ part of this supernatural bullshit.

Hell, the list of people in this town who are a part of the supernatural bullshit is so frighteningly long that Lovino’s half convinced that _no one_ is human and it’s literally just him and his dumbass brother and the second he lets his guard down they’re going to turn on them and, like, _eat them,_ or something.

It’s _stressful._ It is extremely stressful and Lovino does not _need_ this kind of drama in his life.

It’s all fucking ‘Tonio’s fault, obviously. None of this would have happened to Lovino if it weren’t for that thrice-damned Spaniard. Nope. He’d still be living along in happy blissful ignorance and wouldn’t be seeing fairies and shit everywhere he turned. He got _exposed_ to this crap because of that stupid furry bastard, and now, whenever he gets back from school, he clutches his rosary and _prays_ that he can get through the rest of the day without incident. He’ll go home, do the evening chores, come inside for dinner, do some homework, go to bed. Everyday, that’s how he hopes his evening will go.

It never quite happens like that.

Instead, Antonio meets him at the bus stop, grinning like a buffoon as usual, and carries his bag for him because he might as well put those stupid unrealistic muscles to work. Then they’ll leave the road, enter the fields, then the forest.

Then Antonio will change.

He’ll shrug off his loose t-shirt and pull off his pants and sink down onto all fours. Let the fur sprout all over his body and claws extend from his fingers and his ears taper upwards into points. Also, a fucking _tail._

Then he’ll turn around and fucking tackle Lovino to the ground because when he goes furry any and all self control that Antonio has goes out the window. And then Lovino has to spend the next five minutes fending off werewolf slobber, until he gets the stupid asshole off of him.

Then the moron will look at him with those stupid green eyes and Lovino will curse under his breath but spend the next five minutes scratching the asshole behind the ears and having ‘Tonio nuzzle at the side of his face and eventually try to sit on him again.

The second attempt at being sat on will have Lovino on his feet again, walking in the opposite direction, because oh no you asshole, you know how I feel about having your furry butt on me, we have rules, don’t look at me like that, get away from me fucker, we’re not on speaking terms anymore-

Eventually ‘Tonio’s sad whines and puppy dog eyes will wear Lovino down, and he’ll go back to the stupid bastard, scratch him behind the ears again, and start walking with him to the small abandoned barn that he’s living in.

Antonio was basically a squatter when he first moved here, but it’s been about three years since then, and the old barn has been refurnished, the roof fixed, and actual appliances and plumbing and shit have been installed. It’s a major improvement, and if Lovino were the type to read too far into stuff, he’d say that the barn becoming hospitable is a reflection of Antonio’s own growth through the years. From a half-wild wolfman who could barely speak English, to a productive member of society that most of the town genuinely likes, who can still barely speak English.

The English thing is a work in progress. At this point, Lovino’s half convinced that Antonio does it on purpose, so that he can drag him around everywhere under the guise of needing a ‘translator’.

They walk in silence to the barn, Lovino’s hand in the fur on ‘Tonio’s neck and the wolf walking so close to him that it’s a miracle they don’t step on each other’s feet.

It didn’t used to be like this. Lovino used to be scared shitless of Antonio when he was a wolf. Hell, _Antonio_ used to be scared of _himself_ when he was a wolf. There was a lot of fear going around. It definitely didn’t help that Lovino had no idea about any of the supernatural crap going on in the town when suddenly _werewolf in his backyard holy fucking shit._

That was terrible. Everything that year was just terrible.

_But_ they’ve all moved past it. Antonio has near perfect control over his wolfiness now, and he swears that it’s thanks to Lovino, that Lovino helps keep him calm and human. But Lovino’s pretty sure it’s just that now Antonio has a place to live, and sleep, and food to eat, and people who care about him, and that’s a pretty powerful motivator to stay human and not go feral and run off into the woods. It’s living in this town that’s helped him, not just Lovino.

Because, yeah, the town has supernatural bullshit spouting out of every orifice, but, y’know, the people aren’t complete assholes. There’s that whole community feel, where everyone comes together to take care of one another. It’s nice. Even if it is annoying that literally everyone knows everyone and if Antonio kisses him on the cheek while they’re in town then fucking _everyone_ will have heard about it by the end of the day. Lovino will punch Gilbert’s fucking face off if he teases him one more time, he swears to _God._ He does not care if Gilbert is a fucking ghost whisperer or whatever Lovino is not down to take that shit from pasty white potato bastards.

He’ll, uh, he’ll make sure ‘Tonio is with him though. When he punches Gilbert. N-not because he’s scared of the asshole or anything!! He just needs ‘Toni to know that he’s still not down for their relationship to be public or whatever. Y-yeah. That’s why.

(The fact that everyone in town already _knows_ about him and Antonio is something that Lovino savagely ignores with the same passion that he ignores all of the supernatural bullshit going on around him. His boyfriend’s a werewolf? What? Did you hit your head? Are you seeing stars? Did you drink too much wine? Go sit down asshole you sound like a fool.)

It’s a thing though, them. That’s why, before he even goes home, Lovino goes to Antonio’s barn, and they both collapse onto the pile of pillows and blankets that the stupid Spaniard has the audacity to call a _bed._ Antonio lays down on his stomach, and Lovino leans against him, and they’ll spend the next few hours cuddling while Lovino reads to him.

They started doing this to help teach Antonio English, but now Lovino reads to him in Italian too, because some of his favourite stories, the ones his grandpa brought back from Italy, don’t have any translations, and Italian and Spanish are similar enough that ‘Tonio can get the gist of it.

Antonio says that he just loves listening to Lovino’s voice. He falls asleep sometimes, head in his paws, half curled around the younger man. Sometimes Lovino will fall asleep too, sink his face into the soft brown fur and drift off to the sound of Antonio’s breathing. He won’t get any homework done, won’t get home in time to finish his evening chores. Will probably miss dinner, too. He might not go home at all, because walking in the woods at night is a sure way to get a pile of supernatural bullshit right to the face. And Lovino wants absolutely _nothing_ to do with _any_ supernatural bullshit.

His werewolf boyfriend turns and looks at him like he’s hung the moon in the small, dimly lit barn, and Lovino doesn’t fight the small smile that spreads across his face.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will be working through the requests now. May alternate between doing requests and covering some stuff that happened in the past so things make more sense. We'll see how things go.


	10. Rajni (2002)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone requested more India. So here, have Rajni + paranoid Yao + garrulous Daria Dragomir.

**May 2002**

 

“I’m afraid I have some…potentially disconcerting news.”

“..............Oh?”

“There’s a family moving in to one of the old mansions in the forest.”

“………….”

“I don’t think there’s cause for worry though. The house is far from your mountain. I sincerely doubt that they’ll be any trouble.”

“…It was you who told me that this place would be safe, _specifically_ because none of the humans venture into the forest. And now you’re saying you ‘sincerely doubt’ they’ll be any trouble? Forgive me for being less than reassured.”

“I won’t make excuses, but I can honestly say this is unusual. You know how the forest is, it dissuades humans from entering it. There must be something unusual about this family.”

“What kind of humans would choose to move into a run-down mansion in the middle of an overgrown forest? All of the other factors aside?”

“I would like to find out myself, frankly. And as soon as I do I’ll let you know if they’re going to be a problem. You have my word.”

“….”

“Yao, I know this isn’t what I promised you. And I know you’re concerned, but please, wait for me to get more information. Don’t assume the worst and leave. This is a good place for you, and your children.”

“…That remains to be seen. And I will always take the actions that will protect those important to me.”

“….”

“…But I will wait for you to get your information, Rajni. Because my children have grown to love this place, in the time we’ve been here. And because I know what my presence here means to you.”

“It’s not just me, Yao. Your presence has made the mountain, forest, and town a safer place for everyone. The amount of mischievous spirits and spirits and sprites has dropped considerably in the past year. Though I won’t deny, I’ve enjoyed having time to actually run my clinic instead of dashing off to deal with some imps while a patient sits in the waiting room, probably thinking I’m smoking hookah in the back. The townspeople aren’t overly judgemental, but having a flighty doctor who’s always dashing off can’t be giving them any sort of good impression. So I won’t deny that I’ve _thoroughly_ enjoyed not having to run off to deal with malicious spirits in the forest, thanks to you.”

“You’ve given my children a good home, Rajni, so think nothing of me protecting this place for you. It’s effortless, and the least I can do. But understand, I will not stay here if the humans get too close. If we end up having to hide again. I will not stay here if it becomes like every other human-infested area; dangerous. The children’s powers are too wild, too uncontrolled, and Kiku will leave outright if he starts feeling like he’s being sullied by human presence. I hope you can understand.”

“I can, Yao. I do not wish you to leave, but if you believe you have justified reason too, I will respect your decision. You’ve said you’ll give me time though, so honour that. I believe Mr. Beilschmidt has the number of the couple, and I’ll see what other information he has. Will you wait?”

“…I will wait. But please, don’t take too long.”

\---

“You look grim, Rajni. Am I to presume the information you gathered is not good?”

“…I wouldn’t presume anything. It is not the information I was expecting, but it could be better, in the long run. Depending.”

“…Depending? That’s not a word I think I like.”

“…”

“Rajni, please.”

“…Yes, yes I’m sorry. Yao, have you ever encountered sorcerers before?”

“….Sorcerers?”

“Yes. They-,”

“Sorcerers. Humans who exchange life energy for the ability to use magic. An inherently _destructive_ magic. Generally have no respect for the natural laws, or the Children of the Wild. Tendency to use Youkai in ritual sacrifices. Powerful and unpredictable. _Sorcerers.”_

“….Well, they’re a bit more organized, nowadays. Less of the unpredictability. And I don’t believe sacrifices are a popular practice anymore. The sorcerer community is very well policed, you see. They’re based mostly out of Eastern Europe, and all practicing sorcerers have to be registered to a high council. Anyone using magic irresponsibly or destructively is dealt with by the higher tiers of the society. It’s very family based as well. There are about four main sorcerer families who hold the main seats on the council, and as many as twelve smaller ones who also wield power. It’s an intricate system, and it’s very unlikely that you’ll find an out of control sorcerer these days. More sorcerers were burned then witches during the European trials, after all.”

“ _Rajni-,”_

“Yao, please. I told you it could be better in the long run, and I meant it. The name of the family moving here, Dragomir, it’s one of the smaller families within the system. They used to be very powerful, but infighting and power struggle have left them on the lower tiers in recent times. Again, the society is very well policed these days, so it’s hard for me to get information on anything from the past decade or so. I believe it’s the youngest son who’s moving here, and honestly Yao, he might not even be a sorcerer. The affiliated families don’t tend to leave Europe. If he’s here, it could mean he’s not part of the practice. The reason I say that’s better, is because it means you’re not in danger of revealing yourself to some clueless human, who’s going to start crying about monsters in the forest. It will be a man, or a family, who knows what’s out there, and who knows to leave it alone. Can’t you consider that possibility?”

“Your optimism sounds strangely naïve, for someone your age. Inferences and maybe-perhaps. Is that supposed to be good enough? _Sorcerers,_ Rajni.”

“I-,”

“If you want to take a chance on these Dragomirs, than you better be sure. Before they arrive, you better be sure that they are not dangerous, that they are not going to try and use my Children to fuel their own power. That they’re not going to hunt us for sport. Intricate society or not, sorcerers are dangerous. Perhaps even moreso, if they’re so far away from Europe and their ‘heavy regulations’. If you want me to trust you on this, if you want me to stay, you need to be _sure.”_

“I will be sure, Yao. I promise you, if they’re dangerous, you’ll know before they arrive.”

\--

Daria Dragomir, the wife, arrives early to scope out the renovations being made to the house, and it’s both a blessing and a curse. A curse, because if Yao finds out Rajni will have betrayed his trust and the dragon might pack up and leave right then and there. And a blessing, because his search for answers on the Dragomirs has been frustratingly fruitless, and an opportunity to speak with one directly may be just what he needs.

“So you’re the town doctor, yeah?” comments Daria with a grin, sitting on his couch and admiring the various paintings of India on the walls, “Must be a big job for one person. You must be really capable! I feel taken care of already.”

She chortles to herself, and Rajni smiles at her nervously. He can’t sense anything on her, but he can’t imagine a powerful sorcerer wouldn’t be able to hide their aura to a degree. And Rajni’s power is very diminished; he’s never been good at sensing things.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he says with a smile, “Is it just you and your husband moving here?”

Daria shakes her head, hair bouncing. She’s a very expressive woman, full of big movements and a face full of emotion. A conversation between her and Julius Vargas would probably be very fun to watch.

“We’ve got a son, Danut. He’s just a little thing, not even in school yet. Full of energy though.” She smiles, wide and toothy, and Rajni can’t help but smile back. He’s still on edge, still nervous about what he doesn’t know about this family, but Daria is relaxed on his couch. One arm slung along the back, drumming her fingers along idly, and smiling wide. Sorcerers tend to be cautious, suspicious, and paranoid as a rule. And Daria appears to be none of those things.

But still, that’s not enough to go on. He needs to be _sure._ For Yao’s sake, and for the safety of all the Youkai in the forest.

 “I can’t help but wonder, Mrs. Dragomir, what inspired you to choose here as your new home,” he asks, keeping his tone casual as he picks up the teapot and refills both of their cups, “California is quite different from Romania, isn’t it? And I don’t think this town is even on any maps.”

Daria’s beaming smile thins into something more secretive and sly, and she chortles again, picking up her teacup and looking furtively from behind the rim.

“Well, who doesn’t want to come to America?” She asks, tilting her head, “The land of dreams and honey, isn’t it? And California being as it is, with no winters to ruin a good mood. Different doesn’t mean _bad,_ Mr. Rajni. Different just means different.”

She smiles wide and Rajni tries to reciprocate. He has a feeling his smile comes across as strained, flat, complimenting the unease he feels rolling through his body. Daria’s demeanor hasn’t changed, not really, but she’s sitting straighter, one leg crossed over the other, and there’s a gleaming light in her eyes that’s making him nervous.

“This town isn’t on any maps,” she continues, after taking a sip of her tea, “But we heard of it anyways. Someone we know passed through here, and was quite taken with the…scenery.” She smiles again, like there’s a secret she’s not telling, and Rajni fights to keep his own smile in place. “We were intrigued, so Dimi came up here, to see if it was really as cool as our acquaintance said.”

She grins, a wide toothy smile that suddenly reminds Rajni of a shark. “It was,” she adds, “As rich and wonderful and _intriguing_ as we were told. Dimi and I decided we wanted to spend some time here, and Danut hasn’t started school yet, so it wouldn’t be too much of a shock on him. And he’s excited to move to America, besides.”

She laughs, the tea in her cup sloshing around as her shoulders shake. “Our Danut, he’s so bright, he’s got English down pat already! He’s such a good boy. He was trying to do Latin before you know. But he’s so little, it made his head spin. I think he saw English as the lesser of the two evils.”

Rajni blinks, and raises an eyebrow.

“Latin?” he repeats, “That’s…that’s quite the undertaking for someone his…you said he’s not in school yet?”

“Starting first grade here in this town in the fall!” beams Daria proudly. Then her smile fades into the secret, furtive one again. Like there’s a joke she’s in on and he’s not. Rajni’s tea is beginning to taste sour, and he’s starting to feel out of his depth. He’s met sorcerers before, but they’ve always been the suspicious kind, blatantly showing off their power to dissuade people from trying to doublecross them. Trying to make it clear that they’re in charge of the situation. Daria is exhibiting none of that posturing, but all the same, Rajni feels as if he’s lost control of the conversation, and the entire situation.

“Are you confused about the Latin?” she offers, after the silence between has stretched to something close to uncomfortable. She tilts her head; that same furtive smile still in place, eyes glittering. “Well it’s unusual, but we’ve got a lot of books in Latin. Passed down through the family- that sort of thing. Neither Dimi and I have read them all, there’re far too many. But Danut thinks if he gets a head start he’ll be able to do it. He’s an ambitious little thing.” Her smile widens into a grin suddenly, and Rajni stiffens as Daria sits up straighter, placing her tea cup on the table. She leans forward, and rests her elbow on her knee and her chin on her fist, still grinning.

“Hey,” she begins, still grinning, “I noticed you’ve got your own books in Latin, in those shelves by the door. I think I recognize a few, actually. You inherit those like me and Dimi did? Or do you know a good antique books dealer? I’m always looking to make new connections.” Her eyes are still friendly, her posture still relaxed, but Rajni’s stomach drops down to his feet.

The shelves by the backdoor of his sitting room are all filled with books in Latin, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, and Ancient Mandarin. Each and every one of the books is magically affiliated, whether they are spellbooks or books on healing practices that require a hint of magic, or are only effective on Youkai. And Daria has stated that she recognizes them, and has strongly hinted at a _number_ of troubling things in her casual, flippant questions.

Rajni’s mouth hangs open as he struggles to find something to say, and Daria tilts her head to the side, still smiling, but with a challenging, expectant gleam to her eyes.

She _is_ challenging him, that much is certain. Perhaps she found his summons for her to come talk with him in his sitting room to be strange, and came here to confirm or deny her own suspicions. Perhaps she saw the books and immediately jumped to a conclusion, but waited for Rajni to say something to reveal himself, just as he has been waiting for her to. Perhaps she thinks he’s a sorcerer like she is, and perhaps she really thinks he’s just a small town doctor who collects ancient books.

But the time to play coy, Rajni thinks, is probably over. He needs to know why Daria Dragomir is here, and he needs to know if she and her husband are a threat to his town.

He inhales.

“I protect this town,” he begins, his tone firm, and Daria grins in response.

“As a doctor?” she asks, and it’s teasing, it’s a joke. She knows that’s not the answer, but she’s playing with him now. She’s probably been playing with him the entire time.

Rajni doesn’t want to play anymore.

“As a Djinn,” he answers, and he puts weight behind it. Puts his age behind it, his ancient magic, the fire of his bloodline. He may be weak among his kind, watered down and diminished, but that does not mean he isn’t powerful. Not if he wants to be.

Some of the teasing light has faded from Daria’s eyes, and she’s looking at him more appraisingly now, with more consideration. Her smile is soft and sly, and she makes a ‘hmmm’ sound in the back of her throat.

“Ah, I guessed wrong.” She says casually, almost to herself, “Though I did consider it briefly-, I guess I thought assuming you were Djinn would be racist? Well, that’s a point away from me. You had me pegged from the get go though, didn’t you? This was an inquisition of sorts, I could tell.”

She’s not accusatory, and in fact, does not look threatened or uncomfortable at all. She is slightly more tense, but that secretive, furtive smile is gone. She is no longer acting as if there’s some great secret that she knows and Rajni doesn’t. Things are all out in the open now, and the air is clearer for it. He feels something in his chest loosen.

“A sorcerer,” he supplies, “Your entire family.” And Daria beams at him proudly and laughs, her russet-coloured curls bouncing as she does.

“Danut is so little, he wants to be one, but Dimi and I don’t believe in starting them that young,” she says, still laughing. Then her expression smooths somewhat, and she looks at him, just a little more seriously.

“Protect, was it? Are we perceived as a threat then? If you have some knowledge of sorcerers, you’ll know we’re quite the disciplined group. None of that foolishness from the Middle Ages. We know how to conduct ourselves.”

 “In regards to actions around humans,” Rajni counters flatly, folding his hands into his sleeves. “There’s no guarantee on how you’ll conduct yourselves around the spirits and inhabitants of the forest and mountain, and my protection extends to them as well.”  

“Our goals here aren’t malicious,” Daria replies immediately. She still looks far too relaxed, the playfulness not entirely gone from her tone, but she’s looking at Rajni with a somewhat weightier gaze. “This area has a high charge of magical energy, or wild energy, whichever you prefer to call it. And surprisingly little of it is malevolent. Dimi and I have been wanting to put together a…guide of sorts. A bestiary. We’ve encountered our fare share of magical beings, and surprisingly few have been mean and nasty. But the prevailing view in the sorcerer community is that you wild spirits, you monsters, if you pardon the slur, are inherently bad. We’re looking to create an account that disputes that, and this area is so nice! Even the forest, while it certainly isn’t welcoming, doesn’t have the same aura that really frightful creatures do. We want to update some of those terribly biased bestiaries that only include the nasty things that go bump in the night. Dimi and I want to write a book about, you know, peaceful forest spirits. To show they exist.” She looks pleased with herself, proud of this supposed goal of her and her husband, and Rajni finds himself feeling just a little irritated. It’s the same feeling he’d get when he was living in Calcutta, and British activists would come in, report on the community efforts to counteract the rampant poverty, and then act as if they had single handedly saved India as a result.

“Forgive me if I seem a tad skeptical,” he replies dryly, “But you saying that that is your goal does not guarantee that it’s true. I have a responsibility here, and many beings have put their trust in me. How can I be assured that you truly mean no harm?”

“Well I don’t think anyone can be assured of anything, fully,” says Daria, and the last of her smile has finally faded away. The last vestiges of her playfulness. “But we’ve got a son. Barely six. And neither Dimi and I are prepared to do anything that could jeopardize his safety. And besides, if we were looking to cause mischief, why would we move here? That’d be foolish, picking fights in a magical forest, when we’re across the ocean from our families and any sort of assistance. We’d be idiots to do anything ontowards here. Doubly so now that I know there’s a tough doctor-Djinn keeping tabs. If you’re not prepared to trust in my motives, than trust in the fact that I’ve got common sense, and a reasonable amount of self-preservation.”

She has a point, it’s true. If they were looking to cause trouble, this would be the last place to do it, away from the tight hold that the sorcerers and their affiliates have on Eastern Europe. It _is_ only the two of them, and their young son, who are moving here. And if Rajni is willing to believe anything in her story, it’s the earnestness in her parental desire to keep her son safe.

And distrust, he knows, is a big part of the problem that Youkai like him face. The Djinn, witches, warlocks, Spirit Children- the inbetweeners of the world of the Wild. They lose the most, when it comes to the animosity, the paranoia, the fear that exists between Youkai and the humans who know of them. Rajni has always tried to work past that, has always tried to reconcile the Wild and the human world, whenever he can. It’s why he’s here, in this town. It’s why he’s trying to convince Yao to send his older children to school.

But it has to go both ways, he supposes. If he’s going to trust Youkai to live close to this human town, then he has to be able to trust humans to live close to the Youkai. Even sorcerers.

 “If you move here,” he begins slowly, breaking the silence, “You must stay off the mountain. Do not go near it. Do not expand your research beyond the forest. Can you do that?”

“You’ve said that even more seriously then you’ve said everything else.” Daria answers, looking intrigued, “May I ask what’s so terrible about this mountain that it’s so taboo?”

She’s asking the question seriously, but Rajni is still reluctant to say much more. Dragons are extinct, Spirit Children rarely survive past infancy. Who’s to say his own feeble warning would be enough to dissuade a self-proclaimed researcher, if they knew of the existence of such rare creatures?

“That mountain is someone else’s territory, and I’ve promised them they will not be disturbed.” He states, vague but firm, heat and fire behind his words. “I do not break my promises, and I will be beyond upset should someone cause me to break this one. If you or your husband set foot on that mountain, any agreement we come to today will be made void. Do you understand me, Mrs. Dragomir?”

Daria’s eyes widen just a fraction, before narrowing, and Rajni sees her swallow thickly. It’s the only sign of nervousness she’s exhibited, the only hint that she’s not as unflappable as she seems. It’s a bit gratifying to see.

“I understand.” She answers, after only a beat of silence has passed. “Dimitri and I will not go near the mountain, you have my word.”

It’s the first time she’s used her husband’s full name, and Rajni can feel the full weight of the earnestness behind her words. Something uncoils within him, relaxes, and he finally feels as if he’ll be able to give Yao some good news. Feels as if, maybe, this will all work out.

“Thank you,” he says, and the sincerity of his gratitude makes his voice tremble, just a little. “Thank you, Mrs. Dragomir. If your word is worth anything, than I believe we will get along just fine.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3 months. 3 months and I give you a chapter of pure dialogue between a minor character and an OC. 3 months and I give you this??? I give YOu tHIS????!?!
> 
> (I'm just trying to keep the past timeline moving linearly that's all man I'm just a simple person trying to do simple things)


	11. Arthur (2004)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Arthur! I have a final exam tomorrow! It's history but this is an AU so I can't even pretend writing this helped me study! hahahaha the things you do for your fave

**April 23, 2004**

The jacket doesn’t fit.

It’s too tight around the arms, and his shoulders don’t fit into it properly. The jacket is a fold-over, and with the buttons done up all the way, he feels a bit like he’s being suffocated in the too-small fabric.

His mother looks pleased though, admiring the smart new jacket that she bought him for his birthday, matching the black dress shoes and formal pants.

“What a little gentleman,” she says, preening, “You look fantastic, Arthur. Are you excited for your birthday dinner?”

He isn’t, truthfully, but he smiles dutifully all the same, and his Mother smiles back, for a moment. Then she frowns, reaching out a hand to smooth down the edges of his hair, attempting to tame the ruffled look that she can never quite comb out of existence.

It’s been a struggle, lately. He keeps coming home with flowers woven through his hair. Grass stems tied in knots, leaves and petals. Bits of dirt and loam, from when he’s been lying on his back on the forest floor. Mementos and gifts from the flower fairies, the nice ones, the ones that like to poke their heads out from blooms and tap him on the nose. The ones who fly around his head and stick things into his hair. Mrs. Dragomir says that they’re not normally so friendly; that they’re nervous and skittish creatures, and that he must be very special for them to take to him so quickly. She says that he should try and leave the gifts in his hair for as long as possible, so as not to offend them.

He doesn’t want to offend any fairies, even if they’re different from the ones who dragged him out of the window nearly a year ago. The memory still causes him to shiver, rubbing at the spot the break was nervously. He hasn’t seen them since, but he knows they’re still in the forest behind his house.

He wishes he was like the Dragomirs. Like Dani. They have the sight, like him. They can see and hear all of the marvelous, magic things that everyone else only thinks exists in fairytales. But they can also protect themselves. Or, at least, Dani’s parents can.

They’re _sorcerers._ And they can do actual, real, magic! And Dani’s going to learn, he’s going to learn how to do magic too. While all Arthur can do is gain the favour of flower fairies, and see things that no one else in his family can. They don’t understand why he keeps coming with flowers in his hair. They think it’s weird. They think it’s dirty.

It’s been a wondrous year, but it’s also been very trying.

“Let’s go,” says his mother, pressing a hand to his back, like she always does when she’s hurrying him along, “We don’t want to be late for our reservation.”

Arthur doesn’t think the one ‘fancy’ restaurant the town has _needs_ a reservation, but he doesn’t say that.

He also doesn’t say that he’d much rather have a birthday party at home, or in the front yard. He doesn’t get along great with the kids in his class, but he bets they’d come if he invited them. They could play tag in the grass, and eat cake outside. And open the presents on the lawn…

In England, he’d get presents from his friends _and_ his parents _and_ his aunties and uncles. Here, his first birthday in America, and he’s only gotten the clothing from his mother and some lego kits from his father.

He knows that most boys his age like Lego quite a bit, but Arthur’s never been a fan. He prefers to read storybooks, or explore outside. Or even play around with plushies a little. He doesn't see the appeal in building things only to break them, truly.

But he doesn’t tell his parents that.

And especially not his brothers, who will tease him for being too ‘prim’ and ‘girly’.

 _Dani_ never calls him that, even though Dani’s a boy too. Dani doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with liking stories and stuffed animals.

But Arthur can’t tell his parents that either. They still don’t like the Dragomirs very much, even though they’ve grudgingly admitted that Dani is the only friend Arthur has made in town, and Daria and her husband are well-liked by the other townspeople. So, as long as he’s gotten all of his work done, and there’s nothing else his mother can find for him to do, he’s allowed to go over and play.

And playing over at the Dragomirs is…

_Magical._

To go over and play at Dani’s house is to have Mrs. Dragomir smile down at them and open the door, wave her hand, and say ‘have fun!’. There’s no structure, no supervision. Just him and Dani and the forest, and all the wonders it contains. She trusts Dani, she says, because he knows what’s dangerous and the signs to watch out for. And she trusts Arthur – and that’s the most amazing thing – he’s not her son, but she trusts him, because he’s ‘got a logical little head’ and is ‘loved by the forest, which isn’t something to be scoffed at’.

Arthur really, really likes Mrs. Dragomir.

She lets Dani and Arthur go out by themselves – staying in shouting distance of the house, but out of view. She lets them climb trees, and play tag and hide and seek, and hop over creeks and peek into holes, and do everything Arthur’s never been allowed to do before.

The first time they met, Dani asked Arthur to go out and play in the forest with him, and Arthur –when he was trying so hard to stay true to his parents standards, had told him that running through the woods just wasn’t something he did.

But it is now, oh- _it is now_. He loves it, the leaves above him and the roots and the grass and the winding, beautiful flowers below his feet. The sound of the birds and the squirrels and the light whispers of the things he can see. The fairies, observing him from behind closed petals. The nymphs, who won’t talk to him, but whose eyes he can feel watching him. The wispy spirits of the more intangible things- the old, but playful presence of the wind. The temperamental bubbling of the spirits in the river. The animals that are _more._ The birds who giggle, the foxes who grin, the badgers who grumble- the forest, that he can see in all its glory.

He wishes he could show his mother the things he can see. Maybe she’d get why he loves it so much. Maybe she’d understand why he wants to be outside so much. Maybe she’d stop thinking it was dirty, and that running in a forest encouraged bad habits.

But he can’t.

So instead of a birthday party outside on the grass, with the warm spring sun, and the birds singing, and Dani, his best friend, beside him, and Mrs. Dragomir because he adores her, and Mr. Dragomir because he’s kind and patient-

Instead of all that, he has a dinner with his parents and siblings that he’d really rather not go to. He loves his family! A lot! But talking to them always makes him feel sad. Because…they don’t…understand.

They don’t understand what it is to see, and to hear.

And that’s a bit…scary. It’s scary, for there to be something his family just doesn’t get at all. He wants to be friends with his brothers, and he and Fiona used to be great pals, before he started ‘causing trouble’ by ‘shouting about things that weren’t there’ and ‘running amuck with the local hooligans’.

He misses England, sometimes. If only for the simplicity of it. How easy it used to be, to please his family.

It’s harder now. To please them and still be happy.

Like today, for instant. He doesn’t really want to go to this birthday dinner. Not in the slightest bit. Not at all.

His father and brothers are already in the car. Fiona is waiting by the door, adjusting her hair in the hallway mirror. She smiles as she sees them coming, a genuine smile, and walks forward to wish Arthur happy birthday, again, and pinch his cheek.

The smile he gives her in return isn’t so forced, because he’s pleased to be getting along with her again. He really loves his sister, and he loves his brothers when they’re not teasing him.

Is it really as hard as he thinks it is? Getting along with them now? It’s different, yes, now that he does things they don’t agree with, which has never happened before. Now that there’s a polite suggestion from his parent (“But why don’t you stop going into that forest, Arthur? It’s really not a place for a boy like you to be. Running around isn’t a good use of your time. Why don’t you stay inside today?”), that he chooses to ignore. It’s different, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. This could be a nice dinner. All his birthday dinners in England were nice.

He allows his mother to steer him out the door, and keeps smiling as Fiona leads him to the car with her hand in his.

\--

The dinner is neither terrible, nor great. Arthur doesn’t really get into fights with anyone. Not Duncan or Scotty, amazingly enough. But it’s…a bit strained, all the same. Because he had to keep… _lying._ He had to keep lying when they asked him questions. Questions like, _what do you like most about living here now?_ And, _what do you think the future will bring?_ Proper questions to ask someone on their birthday. Reflection questions, his father calls them.

But all Arthur wanted to say was _I love the forest and playing with Dani and listening to Mrs. Dragomir talk about all the creatures she’s seen._ And _I want to see Dani learn how to do magic and I want to know what’s on the mountain and I want the nymphs to talk to me._ And _I want to know if there’s a way for me to do magic too. I want to do magic too._

But he couldn’t say that. He can’t say that.

So he smiles and answers evasively. Says the townspeople are very nice, and that he hopes to make more friends in school in the future. And get good grades.

It pleases his parents well enough, but it’s not the truth, and that doesn’t feel right.

He’s a bit subdued in the car ride back, and Cymry comments snidely that, even though he’s a whole year older, his bedtime hasn’t changed. Arthur huffs that he’s _not_ tired- it’s barely eight o’clock! And his mother says that he can stay up later than nine when he turns ten, and not until then, and Cymry and Scotty and Duncan _all_ laugh, and-

They approach their house, the headlights shining up the driveway and onto their porch, and Arthur’s sharp retorts dies.

There’s someone sitting on their porch. Two someones. In the darkness.

“Oh you’ve _got_ to be bloody joking,” mutters his father, his grip on the steering wheel tightening.

And it would have made his stomach twist, another time, but Arthur pays him no mind. He unbuckles his seatbelt and clambers over Fiona to get out the door, ignoring - and that’s terrifying in itself – ignoring his mother’s sharp retort.

“Happy birthday, Arthur!” Dani calls, as soon as he sees Arthur out of the car, and runs towards him. His disheveled as always, his hair’s a mess, and his clothes are untidy. He might poke fun at Arthur’s jacket, and smart dress shoes, but that’s okay’ it’s alright when it’s Dani teasing him.

He’s grinning wildly – he can’t help it! He saw Dani today at school today, but they didn’t celebrate his birthday beyond making a pretend cake out of rocks at recess. It’s weird to be so happy to see a single person, a person that’s not family, but Arthur can’t stop smiling, and he laughs as Dani picks him up in a hug, swirling him around.

Arthur had many friends in England, but he didn’t have a _best friend._ Not a best mate. Not like Dani is to him now.

“Happy birthday, Arthur,” Mrs. Dragomir says, smiling as she approaches them and ruffles their hair.

Arthur is just a bit startled by her appearance, as he always his. He keeps forgetting she’s going to have a _baby._ And everytime he sees her stomach he’s a bit surprised. When his aunty was pregnant with his cousin, she never did _anything._ She never left her house or went out at all. But Mrs. Dragomir still goes out to do research with her husband. She still sits in the forest with them, some afternoons, reading to them in the shade.

So Arthur forgets, sometimes. And he’s always embarrassed by it. How do you _forget_ that someone’s going to have a baby?

“Daria,” says his mother as she steps out of the car. She sounds friendly, but she’s got her fake smile on. And her eyes aren’t smiling at all. Arthur balks, just a little, but Dani wraps his arm around his shoulder and grins at him, all carefree smiles and unwavering disposition, and Arthur can’t help but smile back.

“You weren’t answering your phone!” replies Mrs. Dragomir cheerfully, waving her hand with a huge smile plastered across her face, “Or your cell! We wanted to surprise Arthur, but we didn’t mean to startle you as well,” She pauses for a moment, and then laughs, loud as usual. Arthur is painfully aware of the judging, distasteful stares of his family, all of them out of the car by now, and shrinks into Dani’s side.

He hates when they’re all in the same place. He much prefers to keep these two worlds of his separate. As happy as he is that he came to wish him happy birthday, this is…

“Our phones were off, we were at dinner,” his mother says stiffly, and Arthur knows that’s not true. He heard their phones. They never turn their phones off.

He shrinks a little more. Why do they have to dislike the Dragomirs so much? Why can’t they just get along?

“Understandable,” Mrs. Dragomir says airily, still smiling, “It’s a Friday, and a beautiful weekend ahead of us. We thought the boys could have a sleepover! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

Arthur’s head whips towards her in surprise, and then he looks at Dani, whose grin has widened significantly.

“You’ve never slept over before!” He whisper-shouts excitedly, “It’ll be fun, we can look at the stars with Papa’s telescope together. And we can-,”

“Oh I’m afraid that’s quite out of the question,” says Arthur’s mother abruptly, sharply, smile brittle. “Arthur has a bedtime you see, and it’s far too spontaneous-,”

“Oh but we’ve already rented the movies and bought the popcorn!” Interrupts Mrs. Dragomir with a laugh. Arthur pales, because his mother, his mother does _not_ like being interrupted why is Mrs. Dragomir so _fearless-_

“And they’ve never had a sleepover before,” she adds, a little less abrasively, “I’d like them to get to have one without the squalling of a baby in the house. No one will have any fun then.” She lays one hand on her stomach with a sigh, before smiling at Arthur’s parents indulgently once more, “And Arthur’s never slept over anywhere before, has he? He’s old enough now, he should learn to sleep away from home.”

And that’s true, he’s never slept over anywhere. Different from his brothers when they were in England. Who were always over at some person or another’s house, even when they were his age.

But his mother doesn’t look convinced. She looks almost angry now. And Arthur wilts, because, really, it sounds _marvelous._ Sleeping over at Dani’s house? For a whole night? Going to bed with people who understand why he’s so afraid of the sounds coming from the forest outside his window at night? With people who won’t make fun of him?

He wishes his family could understand.

His mother clearly doesn’t understand.

His siblings look like they’re going to tease him mercilessly for this, for the ‘uncouth’ associations he keeps, when they’re alone.

But behind them, his father sighs.

“Oh, why not,” he huffs, running a hand through his hair. And then defensively, when Arthur’s mother turns to him with alarm; “It doesn’t seem worth the argument, to be frank. And it’s true that it’s odd that Arthur’s never been over anywhere. At his age, he should have by now. He’ll be back in the morning anyways, just let him go. He’s not a baby.”

 _She never said it was ‘odd’,_ is Arthur’s first thought. _Mrs. Dragomir never calls me ‘odd’._

His second thought is, _Did Father just say yes?_

“I can go?!” he asks, excited. And then, at the look his mother gives him; “…please, may I go?”

She stares back, and he looks down towards his shoes. She turns to look at Mrs. Dragomir, who smiles back, never intimidated by anything. She looks at Mr. Kirkland, who suddenly looks sheepish and directs his gaze elsewhere.

“Oh, well, if that’s all been already decided,” she comments, sounding more angry, less composed than she usually allows herself to sound in front of people, “I suppose you can go.”

Dani lets out a loud whoop of excitement and hugs him again, and Arthur can’t help but laugh in response. And when Dani finally lets go he runs to Mrs. Dragomir, and even though he knows he shouldn’t, not in front of his family who still don’t like her, he hugs her. He gives her the biggest hug, careful of the baby bump.

“Thank you so much!” he whispers fervently, “I’m so excited, thank you so much!”

Mrs. Dragomir smiles down at him, and it’s not the blindingly bright, aggressive smile she gives his parents. It’s softer, and warmer, like the heat from the sun and the warmth of the stories she reads.

“Happy birthday, Arthur,” she says, with a strange gentleness, “It will be a pleasure to have you in our home."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is exactly the quality you'd expect from something written by a stressed university student in snippets while she desperately tries to study for a course with way too many dates to memorize. 
> 
> forgive me. I just wanted to post something for the fave's birthday.


	12. Alfred (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jazz hands*

**May**

The thing about Arthur Kirkland is that he has a weird habit of turning up where you least expect him to be, and when you least expect to see him.

Today, he is at the bakery owned by the Edelstein’s, sitting in the back corner with his head ducked down, like he’s not interested in being seen. But Alfred sees him anyway- the mess of blonde hair is familiar, and the silver hoop in his ear is glinting in the sunlight.

The Edelstein cake shop is not a place that Arthur frequents. The town center in general is not a place that Arthur frequents. Because, y’know, _people_. Kiku’s kinda like that too, a people-avoider. So Alfred gets it. Sort of.

The only places that Arthur can be found on a semi-regular basis are Dani’s house, the library, and the forest. Unfortunately, Dani doesn’t let Alfred into his house, he always gets kicked out of the library for talking too loud, and the forest is _terrifying._ So meeting up with Arthur is hard, unless Arthur actively makes the decision to come over to Alfred’s house. Otherwise, the only place he can count on bumping into Arthur is at school.

The one thing that _can_ be counted on, however, is for Arthur to have a new assortment of bruises everytime they meet. Today, he’s got a bandage across his right cheek, and another across his nose. Two of the fingers on his left hand are also wrapped up, and there’s a nasty bruise underneath his left eye. He looks slightly more roughed up than usual, and Alfred bets it’s worse underneath the longsleeved hoodie that he’s wearing.

Alfred realizes he’s standing, and staring, in front of the door, and the girl at the counter is giving him weird looks, one eyebrow raised. He shakes himself, cheeks flushing, and turns, walking towards where Arthur is sitting.

The older teen looks up, an expression of surprise flickering across his face. Then he tenses, a pinched look that makes his face scrunch up. Arthur raises one hand, as if to cover the painfully noticeable set of bruises and lacerations across his face. But he obviously realizes that, hello, there’s no way Alfred hasn’t seen them already, and drops the hand on the table, the beginnings of a scowl marring his face.

Alfred reaches the table and stops, folding his arms across his chest. He’s going for a ‘stern disapproval’ kind of look. And he knows that’s like, kind of a parent thing to do, but Ludwig can pull it off, and even Kiku sometimes, so he can probably do it to. Hopefully with the same soul-wilting effect that makes you _have_ to spill your guts as it has when they do it.

Arthur just looks up at him though, unimpressed, and says, “Don’t ask,” shortly, and without any room for argument.

Alfred deflates, arms falling to his sides. Stern disapproval just never seems to work on his face. He’s tried it a billion times with Mattie, and it doesn’t work then either.

And it’s not like this is the first time, or even the twentieth time, that he’s run into Arthur while Arthur looked like he just tried to hug a hedgehog. It’s not the first time he and Arthur have bumped into each other while Arthur looks like he just got into a fight with a woodchipper. And Arthur’s never willing to talk about what happened. At most, he’ll give half-hearted excuses about walking into tree branches or tripping over roots, but- that doesn’t seem right. Arthur’s not that clumsy. And after years of spending every waking moment in the forest, Alfred is reasonably sure Arthur could navigate it with his eyes blindfolded and his hands tied behind his back.

But Arthur’s not going to give him any answers, not today, and probably never. And it’s just, _the worst._ Because if Arthur is in trouble, than Alfred should help him! They’re friends, aren’t they? It rubs him all sorts of wrong that Arthur doesn’t trust him enough to tell him if he’s getting into trouble. Or if…if someone’s hurting him.

Alfred scowls, and Arthur stares back challengingly, eyes unyielding. He looks a little tired, but his eyes are still- Alfred’s not going to say something embarrassing like _enchanting,_ but they’re still, well, still Arthur’s eyes. Bright green and- and stuff.

“I wasn’t going to ask,” he retorts defensively, and he wasn’t, really. He’s learned by now, that asking will get him nowhere and will just get Arthur’s back up, “I was just surprised to see you in here. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here before.”

Arthur relaxes a little, and some of the defensive hunch goes out of his back. He slumps in his chair, leaning against it with his arm slung along the backframe. He raises one shoulder in a limp shrug, eyes going to the side.

“Well, I’m not here often,” he replies. Then he smirks, one eyebrow quirking upwards, “Certainly not as often as you are, at any rate.”

Alfred flushes, and he leans down on the table, huffing angrily through his nose. Because he knows _exactly_ what Arthur is implying and he does not appreciate it, thank you very much! He doesn’t eat _that_ many sweets, and besides, he goes running practically _every_ morning.  

“I’m meeting Gilbert here, actually,” Arthur continues, leaning slightly to the side, to look around Alfred and towards the door, “He’s late though, the ass.”

Well, _that_ makes a bit more sense. The bakery is owned by Roderich’s family, and Gilbert and Roderich are…friends? Kind of? Sort of?

Well…they’re something, at any rate, and Gilbert tends to hang around the cake shop. It’s pretty funny, actually. The days when both Elizabeta and Roderich are working here and Gilbert is hanging over the counter. The entire shop gets livelier, and as much as Mrs. Edelstein will admonish Gilbert for distracting her employees and disrupting the atmosphere, Alfred knows she doesn’t mind much. Gilbert has a way of ruffling feathers, but he also has a way of getting under your skin in a good way. Like, you’d swear the guy is the most obnoxious asshole you ever met, but at the same time, you can’t help but like him. Alfred thinks it’s hilarious.

“Well, what are you meeting about?” he asks, because, to his knowledge, Gilbert and Arthur’s usual meeting place is behind the school at x hours past midnight with a case of beer and a playlist of 80s classic rock and German death metal.

But those are just the rumours, of course. And Alfred knows better than to believe rumours about Arthur. People in the town can be mean, sometimes. Maybe Gilbert and Arthur don’t get drunk together nearly as often as people suppose. Maybe Gilbert and Arthur are just meeting to have cake together. Maybe…

But Arthur has stiffened up completely, and he has that look on his face. _That_ look. The look that Alfred _hates._

It’s the look he gets whenever he asks just _what it is_ that Arthur does in the forest for hours.

It’s the look he gets whenever he pushes Arthur; doesn’t stop asking about how he got so banged up.

It’s the look he gets when he asks if Arthur wants to talk about whatever happened to him when he was fourteen.

It’s the look that Arthur gets whenever Alfred veers into the dangerous territory of ~ _Arthur’s Secrets~._ Completely inaccessible to anyone who is not Danut or Niels. And maybe Rajni and Yao, Alfred suspects. Also possibly Kiku? He’s not entirely sure. There are a lot of people in town who seem to know something that Alfred doesn’t.  

It’s so _frustrating!_ Because he and Arthur are friends, right? They _are_ friends. And Alfred likes Arthur a lot. Like, a _lot._ He likes Arthur _so much._ And Arthur just, there is so much that he won’t tell him. Won’t even _think_ about telling him. And Alfred knows that people have secrets, and that even _friends_ have secrets. But Alfred feels like Arthur’s secrets are _important._ Important to who Arthur is. And he feels like if he doesn’t know them, doesn’t at least have an idea of what they are, he’s never going to, like, _get_ Arthur. He’s never going to truly understandhim. Or know him at all.

And he wants to.

He really, really wants to.

And he wants to say that, he wants to tell Arthur that. Tell Arthur that, whatever it is that he doesn’t want to say, whatever he feels he has to hide, he can _tell_ Alfred. He can trust Alfred! Because Alfred, Alfred just wants to be there for him. Because that’s what friends are _for._

He knows his cheeks are red; he can feel his entire face getting hot. And he’s probably gotten himself way too worked up over this, but this is important to him, and he has to just get Arthur to understand-

“You’re going to make your head explode,” comments Arthur with a sigh. “Your face is turning red, Alfred. Calm down.”

Alfred rears back, embarrassed. _Jeez,_ it’s not his fault that not everyone is born with semi-perfect poker faces.

“I am so totally calm!” he retorts defensively, ignoring the way he can feel his cheeks burning, “And anyways, I don’t actually care what you and Gilbert talk about together, so don’t bother telling me. Just forget it.”

He thinks he might have done a bad job hiding how upset he is. A bad job hiding the bitterness and hurt in his tone. Arthur looks at him, and his entire face looks pained. And not because of the injuries. Not because of the bruises and the scratches. He looks like he could be sorry. Like he could regret always keeping Alfred in the dark. Sorry for the secrets that keep them at a standstill. That keep them…keep them from maybe having a chance at being something more than just friends.

The awkward silence that descends between them is broken by the door to the shop opening, and both of their heads turn.

Gilbert Beilschmidt shuffles into the shop, head of white hair unmistakable. He’s hunched, with his shoulders at his ears, and he looks, well, _miserable._ The bags under his eyes are so dark they look like eyeshadow, and his already red eyes look bloodshot. He looks grumpy, exhausted, and borderline depressed.

“Oh Christ,” curses Arthur, but he sounds more sad than angry, and he gestures towards Gilbert, who lifts his head slightly and starts dragging his feet towards them. His eyes pass over Alfred, who winces, because _jeez._ He looks _rough._

“You look rough dude,” he says, eyes passing up and down the man’s body with sympathy, “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah, fine,” Gilbert replies tersely, his voice ragged, almost a growl, “Just spent last night trying to block out the 19th century gold miner cursing his backstabbing-fortune stealing-doublecrossing-nephew to high heavens. And the 20s era showgirl with holes in her tights who keeps aggressively pressing her face against my window for reasons I _really_ can’t even begin to guess. And the little girl who has spent _way_ too much time secretly joining Ludwig, Feli, and Kiku when they watch horror movies and has since done everything in her power to emulate every terrifying little girl in a horror movie since the dawn of time. She’s quoted scenes from _Mother_ word for word, before stopping suddenly and cursing when she misses a word or ‘delivers it wrong’. For fuck’s sake, somebody _shoot_ me.”

Alfred blinks, confused, because Gilbert said all that practically in one breath and he thinks he may have missed something. Or several things. Because, haha, what?

“G- _Gilbert_!” squeaks Arthur, jumping out of his chair and dashing over to Gilbert’s side, grabbing his arm. “As much as I enjoy listening to y-your ideas for potential movie scripts, now is neither the time nor the _place.”_ Arthur practically hisses out the last word, and Alfred finds himself recoiling in alarm, while Gilbert just gives Arthur a flat, tired look.

“I don’t _care,”_ he practically whines, dragging one hand across his face, “I’m exhausted and everything _sucks._ Fucking ghosts, man.”

….

“Oh for- Alfred, ignore him, he’s overtired and probably drunk,” says Arthur snappishly, pulling Gilbert away from the table, “We’re going to go for a walk and sort all of this out. Just…we’ll talk another time, okay?”

Arthur shoots Alfred a pleading look, which Alfred meets with a silent, utterly flabbergasted stare. Unease, and some of that earlier regret flicker across Arthur’s face, before he turns away, and pulls Gilbert out of the shop.

The door shuts, and it’s just Alfred. Standing alone.

“Don’t think too much on it, hon,” the lady at the cake counter chimes in suddenly, and Alfred jumps about a foot into the air because he _completely_ forgot she was there. She laughs a little as he whirls around, and then waves her hand dismissively. Who is she again? One of Roderich’s cousins. Or one of Gilbert’s cousins. Some German-speaking family in the town.

“Gilbert always gets like that when he has a bad migraine,” she continues, shrugging her shoulders, “Elizabeta and Roderich are usually the ones who help him out, but Elizabeta’s writing exams and Roderich’s been out with the flu for a week. They don’t usually let it get this bad.”

Her lips quirk upwards into a sad smile, and she sighs, “They’ve been getting worse lately, though. I hope he’s okay. It’s boring here, when he’s not hanging around.”

A frown mars her face, and she lifts herself up from where she was leaning on the corner, looking towards the door with a displeased expression.

“He wasn’t drunk just now,” she says, a little bit defensive, “I hope that Arthur kid doesn’t make his headache any worse by taking him drinking or something. That’d be just like him, wouldn’t it?”

 _That_ snaps Alfred out of his confused silence, and he looks at the lady sharply, eyes narrowed.

“No, actually, it wouldn’t,” he snaps, “Arthur’s a good friend. If Gilbert has a bad headache he wouldn’t do something like take him drinking.” He feels his entire body tense, his shoulders hunch up, and he gives her the dirtiest look he can muster. “None of you know a single thing about Arthur, so it’d be great if you stopped talking about him as if you do! Especially if the only things you can think to say are bad things!”

The girl returns his dirty look in kind and folds her arms across her chest, raising an eyebrow challengingly.

“Oh yeah?” she retorts, her tone bordering on contempt, “And what do _you_ know about your friend, huh? He didn’t seem eager to tell you how he got so beat up.”

Alfred stiffens, and his stomach twists. “It’s not nice to eavesdrop,” he bites out, hands curling into fists at his side.

“I’m just saying,” she replies airily, her expression melting into something closer to pity, “It’s cute of you to leap to his defense like that, but you have to recognize that it’s not right. That there’s something off about him. And that I’m not the only one who doesn’t ‘know a single thing’ about Arthur.”

That’s like a punch to the gut. Like a suckerpunch right in the center of his stomach. The truth hurts- everyone always says it, but he doubts they mean it in a physical way. But this? This is a direct, stabbing pain in his abdomen and chest, and he suddenly feels choked up. Like he- like he might cry, or something lame like that.

He wants to chew the girl out. Whoever’s cousin she is. He wants to tell her she’s wrong, and maybe swear a little, wave his arms around for emphasis.

But he can’t find the words, the truth-shaped bruise still aching and stealing the breath from his lungs.

So he turns around and leaves without saying anything else, without retort. Without defending himself or Arthur. Because, hell, what can he say to that?

What can he say to prove her wrong?

There is a list of things that Alfred knows about Arthur. There are tons of little things that Alfred knows about Arthur. He knows what to say to make Arthur laugh. And he knows what not to say to not make Arthur frown. And he knows that Arthur is a good person, a kind person, regardless of his outward persona.

But whatever it is that he _doesn’t_ know is a massive, integral piece of Arthur’s life. And it is the answer to a hundred and one unsolved questions. It’s the rebuttal he needs against people like the cake shop girl. It’s the last section of the puzzle.

It’s something Arthur doesn’t want to tell him.

People have secrets, Alfred knows. And that’s alright. That’s perfectly fine. It’s okay to have a secret or two. He refuses to let this bother him. He refuses to let it affect his and Arthur’s friendship.

It’s not a big deal, he assures himself, he can’t let what the cake shop girl said get to him. He and Arthur are good friends, and he _does_ know Arthur. Maybe not _everything_ about him, but who knows everything about anyone?

 _It still hurts though,_ he thinks to himself, subdued, as he unlocks his bike from the bikerack and pulls away. _It still hurts._

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been determined to get out a Gilbert or Gilbert-Roderich-Elizabeta chapter since writing chapter 10. But it's just. good god. It's been a trial and a half. I have so many discarded drafts. this was one of them. But I looked it over again yesterday and though 'hey, actually, this is usable'. so. here. I mean it was a draft I wasn't happy with so, it's not great but. It's something yeah. 
> 
> The _actual_ Gilbert-Roderich-Elizabeta should be along shortly. Unless I give up on the draft I am currently working on and have to start from scratch. again. 
> 
> also the Edelstein cakeshop is staffed entirely by HRE/Germanic State OCs. So cake shop girl was probably like, Bavaria or something. idk


	13. Elizabeta (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who reads and enjoys this fic!  
> Sorry for the wait for the people who requested Hungary! (like a year ago whoops)  
> ^_^

You can look back on your life as a series of stages.

When you were younger, you were _determined_ to be a boy. You resented being referred to as a ‘she’, would only respond to shortened versions of your too-girly name, and refused any and all dresses, pink stuff, and gem-studded plastic tiaras. _Yuck._

When you were a bit older, you settled on being a boyish-girl, and took vicious delight in being stronger than all the boys who hadn’t let you join in on any of their games previously. You were stronger and faster than all of them, _obviously,_ and there was an undeniable satisfaction in knowing that, because they wouldn’t address you as a boy, they were now getting their asses beat by a girl. Grinding their faces into the dust had never felt so sweet.

The next stage was a bit of a mishmash. A blend of getting mixed up in all of Gilbert’s weirdness and _wanting_ to be more girly to get Roderich’s attention. Coming to terms with the stranger parts of yourself, the parts you had always tried desperately to bury, the parts that always seemed to come out when Gilbert was around ( _figures_ ). Confronting the new identity you tried to construct, and the consequences of pulling Roderich into all oddness wrapped up within you and Gilbert.

It ends in all of you sitting in the school music room, both you and Gilbert bruised and bloody from a disagreement, a fight, and Roderich in between, playing his favourite sonata. _That_ was the day this and this and this became _them_. The three of you.

It was also the day you decided to be whoever you wanted yourself to be, regardless of how strange or otherworldly that ended up being. Because Gilbert and Roderich would be with you, no matter what you chose for yourself. And because you weren’t afraid of kicking the ass of anyone who tried to tell you that who you were inside was wrong.

At age nineteen, you think that you’re finally comfortable with who you are, if a little busy with juggling several responsibilities, and several lives.

Your school self, at the distant community college that you drive to four days a week. Your work self, taking on as many shifts as you can at the Edelstein’s cakeshop, and helping out Mr. Vargas on his farm when he asks and you’re able. Your personal self, hanging out in the auto repair shop while Gilbert fixes your barely-functioning car, going over to the Beilschmidt’s with Roderich to cook dinner when the Chief works late, helping Feli with his homework, lending a hand in Toris’s garden…

And of course, your _other_ selves. The strangeness. Your childhood secret, and current reality. All of the oddness from your dreams, the faces and events, the memories, the names. Her and him and him and them. This and this and this. Each and every ‘you’ that sleep brings to the surface.

It’s early June, and your birthday is in a few days. You’ll be twenty, which is honestly a scary age to be approaching. It’s causing you to reflect a lot, to muse on the past and worry about the future.

It’s been fifteen years since it first started.

It’s been fifteen years since you began having bad dreams.

They were the kind of dreams that you can’t shake yourself awake from. The kind that pull you along relentlessly. Move you forward through a pre written plot that doesn’t allow for deviations. And they felt _real,_ as well. In a way that your other dreams, the ‘good’ dreams, didn’t. Dreaming of going to school and forgetting a big test, dreaming of flying in space, dreaming of getting turned into a hippo…They were all _dreams_ in a way that was painfully obvious. The unreality of it was clear to you, even while you were still asleep. If you tripped, it didn’t hurt. If you held your breath under water, you didn’t feel lightheaded or weak. If you were afraid, it was a detached fear; like whatever was chasing you, scaring you, would never really catch up. Could never really hurt you

The bad dreams were different.

In the bad dreams, you could _smell._ You could smell things you wouldn’t have names for when you woke up, but that would feel intimately familiar while you were still asleep. Your eyes would hurt from the glare of the sun, or from the heat of a nearby fire. The cold would be painful, biting at your skin. You’d feel the tears on your cheeks, and taste blood on your lips. Everything was _real,_ in a way you could never quite articulate upon waking.

Like a vivid, unforgettable _memory_.

The dreams varied wildly, different places, different settings, but they always shared a common theme. Battle. Fighting. Sometimes in cold places, sometimes in warm places. On barren, craggy, mountainous land or upon razed fields. You feel blisters pop on your feet, and want to cry. You feel the peeling of the hard callouses on your hand where you grip your sword, where you grip your bow, where you grip your spear and shield. The weapons vary, the places vary.

Sometimes you’re above, looking down, on a horse. Black, white, gray, dappled. Sometimes you’re on the ground, in a great mass of people. Smelling the blood, the sweat, the fear. Mud mingling with blood and grime on your skin, staining your clothes.

Sometimes your hair is cut short, so you barely notice it, and sometimes it hangs in your face, distracting, dirty.

You dream of cutting people down, of your sword singing through the air. You feel the way your lance breaks through the breastbone and ribcage of your opponent. You hear the _thunk_ your arrow makes as it sinks into an eye socket. You stab a spear into a horse’s side, and the scream its rider makes when the horse collapses on top of him echoes in your ears when you awake.

‘Bad’ dreams.

Dreams that leave your heart pounding, your face flushed, and your breath hurried in your chest. Dreams that leave you with an adrenaline rush, and a yearning for the smells you can never find names for upon waking.

When you were younger, you woke up crying. Overwhelmed, terrified. Confronted with images and events, sights you should have never been subjected to. You couldn’t properly articulate what you’d seen to your concerned parents at first, and when you could, it lead to a trip out of town, to a too-expensive psychiatrist that your mother made it clear you were only going to see _once._

The trip didn’t help much, because there was nothing in your life that was particularly _unsettled._ Nothing that would cause you to have such terrifying dreams. All talking about them did was make your parents’ faces grow more and more concerned.

As you grew older, you learned not to talk about them. Learned to just. Keep them to yourself.

‘Bad’ dreams.

Dreams that leave you with the strangest sense of longing, the weirdest feeling of nostalgia. A yearning for those sights of carnage and bloodshed. For the pungent smell of gunpowder, sweat, and carrion.

You were the strongest person in your class. You could beat anyone in an arm wrestle. You were faster than everyone. You could play all the sports. You were good at riding horses, and shooting cans off a fencepost, and wrestling escaped pigs to the ground.

You didn’t have many friends.

You remembered life, _lives,_ on a battlefield, and began to look forward to the nights that whisked you away into the past.

The past has always been vivid in your mind. From the time you were small, up until now. The future is uncertain, but looming with intensity.

The present is a blur of routine, and will be until you finish the last of your exams, next week.

You feel bad, honestly. You’ve been so busy with school that you haven’t been able to help out Roderich in the cake shop, or help out Gilbert with his ghosts. He called you about some soldier from the war of 1812 sitting outside his window, and you had to ask him to call Arthur instead, because you had a major paper due in twelve hours. It was the third time you blew him off in the past two weeks, and you felt awful about it.

Arthur’s better with ghosts than you are, technically. He befriends them rather than just bosses them away like you do. But, at least, when you chase away ghosts, they stay gone. When Arthur helps, they tend to return within the week.

It’s a little sad, that Arthur is so friendly with ghosts that he can’t keep them away, but is so bad with people but most of the town actively avoids him. You can’t fully understand him, even being as you are. What you and Gilbert are wrapped up in is very singular and contained. It’s nothing like the glimpses of Arthur’s world that you see now and again. Gilbert sees ghosts, and you see them if you connect to your past selves, if you call upon the ghosts of who you used to be, but that’s it for you. That’s the extent of your weirdness.

Arthur’s weirdness extends past the old houses and abandoned barns. Past the ancient battlefields and lonely graves, and into the depths of the forest, and the mountain beyond. The stuff that’s far bigger than all of you. Arthur has troubles you couldn’t even dream of, and you dream of some pretty wild things.

So you’re glad that it’s almost summer, and that you’ll have some free time again soon. To help Gilbert out again. To let Arthur go back to whatever it is he usually deals with. The stuff that leaves bruises and scratches all over his arms and face. The stuff that you, for all your centuries as warriors and knights and soldiers, can’t fight.

(the fact that there is fighting going on in the forest that you’re not a part of bothers you more than you can say. but you’ve dreamed of enough battle filled lives to know you should cherish your peaceful one.

You know, and still…)

Today, you should be studying, should be locking down the last facts for your last exam. But it’s evening, and you’re tired, and the sky is bright with stars. So you go walking, and your feet take you down a familiar path.

The cake shop is empty, this late. Roderich’s at the counter, which is unusual, but you know it’s because he’s taken on some of the shifts you’ve had to cancel. He usually stays in the back, baking or washing dishes, and it’s odd to see him sitting at the front, scrolling through his phone and looking as tired as you feel.

Dear old Roderich. Sensible, respectable, and a little flimsy if you’re being honest. He can’t see what Gilbert sees, and can’t understand your dreams. But he stands by you all the same, and tries to help in any way he can. Which is usually playing his piano; apparently as calming to the supernatural as it is to you and Gilbert. Other than that, Roderich isn’t really as wrapped up in the weirdness as you and Gil are.

Roderich is all kinds of delicate though, really, and you truly, sincerely feel bad for the time some ghost wrote ‘thanks for the nocturne’ in blood on his mirror while he was in the shower.

It was nice sleeping over at his house for the next month though.

The cake shop is _mostly_ empty, probably would have been a more accurate observation. Gilbert is here. But Gilbert is such a permanent fixture; he’s more a part of the furniture than a patron. Smelling of car grease and oil. Paper-pale and looking roguish as always. During the day, when there are others around, he’ll sprawl himself over the counter. Make a nuisance of himself. Tease you and Roderich mercilessly and laugh so loudly that everyone in the shop winces and covers their ears.

But when it’s late, and it’s just the three of you in the shop, he’ll slump into one of the chairs, head rested on his folded arms. Quiet. Like he is now.

Gilbert is known throughout the town as something of a miscreant. Not an out-and-out delinquent obviously – that would be hard to accomplish as the grandson of the Police Chief – but a noted troublemaker. He’s not in school – neither he nor Roderich are – and works full time at the auto-repair shop owned by Mr. Adnan.

Gilbert’s always been around- he’s the same age as you, so you’ve always been in the same classes. When you were younger, you interacted in a rather aggressive way. No matter how many times you beat him, he’d always answer your schoolyard challenges. Arm wrestling, _actual_ wrestling, and stick-sword fights. He raced you all over, and would play tag until both of you were too winded to stand up. But you didn’t talk in class, or outside of the school. You thought he was obnoxious, and he only saw you as a rival he was destined to one day beat.

He was also the only one who acknowledged your claims of being a boy. In fact, he seemed downright confused when you started begrudgingly allowing people to call you a girl.

You’ll never forget that.

But, really, you weren’t friends. Sparring partners, mostly.

It wasn’t until you were ten years old that that changed.

On Halloween of that year, Gilbert had run up behind you and ruthlessly yanked on the sash of your pirate costume until you turned around, barely sidestepping the swing you took at him with your bag of candy. He’d started jabbering on about things that didn’t make any sense. Saying that _someone_ wouldn’t leave him alone and that this _someone_ had recognized you and that this _someone_ promised to leave if Gilbert gave you a message.

‘You should tell an adult if someone’s bothering you. Isn’t your grandpa the Police Chief?’ says ten year old you. Irritated, but also strangely intrigued.

‘Grandpa can’t see this guy. No one can.’ Says ten-year-old Gilbert, pale face flushed scarlet.

‘So he’s imaginary,’ says ten-year-old you, unimpressed and ready to take another swing with your bag.

‘No, he’s a mercenary from the Austrian army, like, 200 years ago. He’s a ghost,’ says ten-year-old Gilbert, looking unhappy and frustrated, “And he says his name is Eirlichmann and you were his commanding officer or- or something. Look I don’t get it either okay! But he said if I told you that ‘the ambush wasn’t your fault’ and that he ‘sold information to the Protestants’, he’d leave me alone! So there! I said it! Goodbye!’

And with that, ten-year-old Gilbert turned heel and fled, back to wherever he had been. To his group of friends, to his grandfather and younger brother, to wherever he and his stupid, make believe stories came from.

Ten-year-old you huffed, readjusted your sash, rejoined your friends while complaining about how _weird_ and _rude_ boys are, and resolved to kick Gilbert in the shin _hard_ when you’re at recess the next day.

That night you dreamed.

A ‘bad’ dream.

In this dream you’re tall, and strong, and have a sword and a gun. You have men who listen to you, men who you’re responsible for. And you watch as those men are cut down around you. As they’re swarmed, overwhelmed. As what was supposed to be a safe spot, a place for rest, is overrun by their enemies.

You feel nothing but a crushing, swelling guilt. Pain, panic. Sorrow, devastation and anger. Futility. The men you cut down with your sword mean nothing. There are too many. They are surrounded and there are too many and you have failed the men you are responsible for.

You woke up bawling. Tears streaming down your cheeks. With an image emblazoned in your mind’s eye. Of a dirty man with a dirty coat and a gun with a crack on the barrel and it’s the first time you ever had a definitive name for anything in one of your dreams.

The next day at school, you marched up to Gilbert Beilschmidt, grabbed him by the collar, shoved him against a wall and snarled:

‘You tell Eirlichmann that he’s a filthy traitor, and that the blood of our comrades is on his hands. He should be _burning_ for his crimes, and it’s _beyond_ disgraceful of him to avoid punishment by pestering _children_.’

Gilbert had looked shell-shocked. The other children in the hallway looked stunned. A nearby teacher looked like her eyes are about to bug out of her skull.

Two seconds after the words were out of your mouth you realize what you just said. You dropped Gilbert like he was a piece of hot coal.

There was something flickering in the corner of your eye. Something dirty and familiar and shamed and cowed that stared at you for a moment before blinking out of existence.

You rushed away before Gilbert could respond, and before anyone in the hallway could comment. Your heart was pounding, your ears were ringing, and you were _scared._

Understandably, you refused to talk to Gilbert for the rest of the year.

Reunion had come near the end of school, all the way in June. A chance meeting outside the music room, because you had decided you were going to marry Roderich Edelstein and Gilbert had discovered that Roderich’s music calmed the specters haunting him.

You can remember it clearly. You, newly eleven, head over heels for Roderich, who you had never noticed before. Until he’d come across you, just emerged from a round of cartwheels in the field, and idly commented that he thought you looked nice with flowers tangled in your hair.

At eleven, that was as good enough a reason for love as any. You couldn’t get his oversized glasses and ridiculously serious expression out of your head.

You had planned to corner him at recess, declare your undying affection and impending marriage, and show off how fast you were, and how good you were on the monkeybars. But you discovered that Roderich spent most recesses in the music room, and had to settle for sneaking inside to see him one day, feeling rebellious as you crept past the hall monitors.

You were confident in most things, but in that hallway, you had been struck with an unexpected bout of self-doubt. It had been a rough year. Avoiding Gilbert, the only one who still called you by your ‘boy’ name and still referred to you as a boy most days, pushed you to try and decide whether you wanted to give up entirely on being a boy or not. Whether you should stop being so rough and tumble all the time. And falling for Roderich made you think that maybe it was time to…stop. To just accept it. To just be a girl and wear pink and tiaras and put on lipgloss so Roderich would like you better.

On your way to that music room, you had become cripplingly self-conscious. Your knees were bruised up and dirty. Your shoes were all scuffed. You hadn’t looked the way girls usually did when they asked boys out on dates. Wearing shorts and a t-shirt, hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail. Bandages on both your elbows.

But you kept going all the same, tucking your hands into your pockets and marching forward with your head high. You could envision yourself knocking on the door, and Roderich opening it, smiling at you…The vision became more vivid as you drew closer and heard soft music playing, a muted melody that you could barely make out. Roderich’s playing; it had to be.

But your romantic fantasy had been shattered as you turned the corner, because Gilbert Beilschmidt had been sitting against the door to the music room with his legs pulled up against his chest and his face pressed against his knees.

You had been _very careful_ about avoiding Gilbert ever since that Halloween, and seeing him here, between you and your future husband, had filled you such a rush of rage that it had left you lightheaded.

“Hey!” eleven-year-old you calls out, before you can change your mind.

Gilbert’s head jerks upwards and his expressions transitions from confusion to alarm, and he shoots to his feet. His laces are untied.

“Shh! Don’t, you’ll get a teacher over here!” he hisses, looking furtively from side to side, “Look Li, don’t be lame and tell on me, okay? I’m just sitting here, so-,”

“I don’t care, I don’t even want to talk to you!” you interrupt, “I want to talk to Roderich, so _move._ ”

You lowered your voice though, to an angry whisper. Partially because you also didn’t want to attract a teacher or a hall monitor, and partially because Gilbert…didn’t look so good. He looked like he was listening to something painful, his head ducked and face scrunched up, his entire body cringing to the right. Like there was someone yelling into his left ear.

But there was no one there.

You and Gilbert ended up arguing, because with the two of you cooler heads never seemed to prevail. The soft tune of Roderich’s playing was your background music, as Gilbert attempted to bluster his way through an explanation and you tried to pretend you weren’t horribly intrigued.

That was the worst thing about Gilbert; he always had a way of catching your interest.

But you were snappy all the same, angry about your fantasy being thwarted. Still unnerved about what had happened in the Fall. And Gilbert was bristling, spooked by something. Lashing out defensively while looking over one shoulder anxiously.

It ended with Roderich opening the door suddenly, eyes narrowed behind the glasses that seemed to take up his entire face. He was way cleaner looking then either of you. Shirt tucked in, shoelaces done up, and making eleven-year-old you painfully aware of how dirty your knees were.

“Just what are you two doing?” demands Roderich, frowning hard, his glasses slipping down his nose.

A guilty silence, and then: “Listening to you play.” You and Gilbert answer at the same time. You’re desperate, seeking approval, and Gilbert’s sullen, looking at the floor.

Roderich blinks, and then blushes, looking down and adjusting his glasses, fighting against the pleased smile threatening to spread across his face.

“O-oh,” he stammers, still not looking at you, “Oh, well, I’m just practicing, so obviously I’m not playing as well as I usually do, so really-,”

“It was wonderful!” you exclaim, beyond ecstatic that you’ve gotten his attention, and made him smile besides, “Really, it was! Gilbert, tell him!” And that was stupid of you, asking Gilbert for support on this. It was just, in that instant you forgot that you weren’t actually friends, and that you hated him a little.

“Your playing makes the ghosts quiet,” is what Gilbert chooses to say, reminding you of why you avoided him in the first place.

Roderich’s smile dropped off his face. You froze completely.

Roderich looked at you, then at Gilbert, then at the ceiling, then shook his head and shut the door.

The silence in the hallway was deafening.

There was another explosion of sorts, after that. You were pissed, once you got over your stunned shock, and yelled at Gilbert, and for once he hadn’t yelled back. Just kind of scrunched in on himself, until you were both hauled off by the ever-feared hall monitors.

You tried to do damage control over the next few days. Tried to approach Roderich, explain that you and Gilbert weren’t friends, that you didn’t know what he was talking about. But Roderich avoided you. And not subtly either! He did to you what you’d done to Gilbert ever since Halloween. Turned on his heel when he saw you approaching in the hallway, ignored you in class, and refused any and all eye contact.

You remember being _furious._ You were tired of being _weird._ It didn’t matter that you still felt like a boy most days, that you only wanted to be a girl sometimes. You were tired of people looking at you funny, and you were ready to _act_ like a normal girl. You wanted someone to tell you that you were pretty, and cute, and that you looked nice with flowers in your hair, and you wanted to hold Roderich’s hand and go to movies and be his girlfriend.

It broke, for you. You were tired of it. After a week, you were like a turkey in the oven: done. So you punched Gilbert right in his stupid face in the hallway. Not even outside at recess; right there in the hallway.

It was nowhere near as satisfying as you hoped it would be, watching his cheek bloom blue and purple. The worst part was he didn’t even look mad; he looked exhausted. But he punched you back, and that was all that mattered. You were looking for a fight.

You both got in trouble for it, obviously. Your parents were called, and you had to stay in for recess all the next week, and stay after school as well. Neither of you spoke to each other.

And you caught Roderich looking at you, sometimes. At your swollen and split lip and Gilbert’s black eye and blue-purple cheek. You caught him looking and you didn’t. You didn’t try to look back. You were tired.

On the last day of your punishment the teacher who supervised you inside said something strange.

She said that for the last day, you would be spending your detention in the music room. That she had to leave early, so the music teacher would be supervising instead.

You remember your heart suddenly thundering in your chest. Remember seeing Gilbert’s head lift a little out of the corner of your eye. The bruise was an ugly splotch of colour on his face, and seeing it made your stomach hurt. You still tasted blood when you ran your tongue across your lip. It reminded you of your dreams. Your wondrous, terrifying dreams.

What, you wondered, -and you still hated it, the way he could get you so _interested_ -was it that Gilbert saw?

You didn’t ask. You weren’t speaking to him, after all. And now you were going to have to sit in the back corner of the music room with him, watching Roderich’s fingers glide across the piano and his back remain firmly turned towards you.

You hadn’t gotten your period yet, but you imagined this was what PMS felt like- constant vacillating between righteous firework anger and desolate stormcloud misery. 

Roderich’s face did something funny when he entered the room and saw the two of you sitting quietly at the back. The music teacher waved a hand, said she was taking over for Mrs. So-and-so and to pay you and Gilbert no mind. You looked at your shoes. Gilbert sneezed and wiped the snot away with the hem of his t-shirt. You sighed.

Roderich started to play.

It wasn’t the smooth, seamless melodies you were used to. It was more halting, more unsure. But you loved it all the same. You closed your eyes and let yourself be swept away. Let yourself imagine a universe where Roderich _wanted_ to play for you.

If you weren’t who you were, Elizabeta some days, Li others, you might have started to cry.

Sometime later, the music teacher excused herself for the washroom. You and Gilbert stayed obediently silent and Roderich continued to play as the door clicked shut.

His fingers danced, and you dragged your shoes along the floor. Gilbert chewed on his bottom lip.

Then Roderich stopped playing.

You stopped moving. Gilbert tensed.

Roderich turned.

“Why did you punch Gilbert?” asks Roderich, in a blunter way then you expected. You can’t think of how to respond, you’re so surprised he’s speaking to you.

“Because Li has a big stupid crush on you and I messed it up,” says Gilbert before you can answer, just as bluntly, always happy to ruin everything for you.

Eleven-year-old you, showing remarkable strength of character, merely buries your face in your knees. You don’t so much as kick Gilbert. Somehow.

You don’t see Roderich’s expression, his reaction, but the silence is thunderous.

Then, “…Why did you say that…that thing about the ghosts?”

“Because it’s true,” answers Gilbert quickly, “They bother me, sometimes. I don’t care if you don’t believe me- no one does. But it’s true. And when I- I’d sit in front of the door when you were playing, and they’d calm down. Stop talking. Mostly. It’s- They get very loud sometimes. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. _I don’t care if you don’t believe me_.” His words curl into a snarl abruptly. A tone that’s closer to the Gilbert you’re used to. This boy with his head ducked down and shoulders hunched was a foreign entity to you- you preferred your nemesis with his teeth bared.

Which is a stark contrast to _now._ The cackling, obnoxious Gilbert who leans across the cake shop counter is one you enjoy sparring with. Verbally, most days. But he’s not the one you’ve come to cherish. Not the one whose hair you’ll card your fingers through, his lap you’ll sprawl over.

It was different back then, though.

Then, hearing the snarl in Gilbert’s voice invigorated you. Your head shot up, and you were ready with a hundred thousand barbed words. Your fists balling. But Roderich’s eyes made you pause. He’d flinched away from Gilbert, and his gaze was now firmly on you. It was careful and cautious, like a curious deer, seconds away from being startled into the thicket.

“Elizabeta,” he said, trying it out, and you felt your heart do a twirl, “Do you believe in Gilbert’s ghosts?”

It’s not what you were expecting him to ask, and you were caught off guard, frowning in silence, your fists falling to your side. You didn’t know the answer to that question.

“He- She-, the ghosts talk about hi- about Li sometimes,” says Gilbert, answering for you yet again, “They know stuff. But h-she can’t see them. No one else can.”

“I can speak for myself!” you snap, feeling deeply uncomfortable, as uncomfortable as Gilbert sounded using feminine pronouns to describe you.

“And I-,” you pause, remembering that dirty, familiar flicker in the hallway, “I can see them, sometimes. I saw- I saw the one you told me about. The one I yelled at you for.”

There was the answer then. A secret you had denied yourself from acknowledging for months.

You stared at the ground. Gilbert stared at you. Roderich frowned.

You had been filled with a resigned sort of sadness then. This was it, the weirdness that would push him away for good. You’d have to burn all the notebooks you’d filled with his name tacked onto yours. So long to hand-holding and flowers coyly tucked behind your ear. So long, farewell, _Auf Wiedersehen-_ goodbye.

“Ah,” Roderich looked like he didn’t know what to say. “I-, ah, hm.”

You wanted to sink into the ground and die.

Gilbert wouldn’t stop staring at you.

Roderich rubbed at the bridge of his nose, and evidently decided that he was done with the conversation. Because turned back towards the piano. Your heart exploded into a billion pieces- no exaggeration.

And then-

“You can-, if you like my music, you can come sit beside me, as I play,” says Roderich, bizarrely officious, even at age eleven, “I don’t- don’t know about all _that_ , but I like you just fine Elizabeta, and I’m always happy to find someone who enjoys my music, for whatever reason.”

The sky cleared and the sun shone again. You could have pumped a fist into the air, you were so happy.

Your legs were wobbly, and it took every ounce of your courage to walk across the room to the piano bench. To sit inches from Roderich, hands bunched in your shorts. Gilbert followed cautiously, creeping to Roderich’s other side. Neither of you said anything. It felt too much like a bubble of opportunity, ready to be popped by careless hands.

It occurred to you then, watching Gilbert sit down with more care then you’d ever seen him take, hands neatly folded and gaze bashful under his eyelashes, that he might _also_ have a crush on Roderich.

That complicated the issue in ways you didn’t want to think about just then, and you’d shoved it aggressively to the back of your mind, concentrating instead on Roderich’s hands, hovering over the keys.

He didn’t play right away. Instead he lowered his hands gently, then turned to you. You kept your head ducked, consumed with a shyness that was completely out of character. The conversation thus far had been emotionally exhausting- you just wanted to hear him play, nothing else.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” asks Roderich slowly, tone unsure, “Is it Elizabeta or- or Li?”

A good question. One you weren’t sure the answer to. One people didn’t tend to ask. Everyone just decided that Li was a fanciful nickname, a delusion from a weird little girl, and ignored it. But here was Roderich, asking.

Your heart did funny things again.

But what was the answer?

Just who were you, after all?

You don’t want to wear lipgloss, because you think it’s gross. You don’t mind pink though. You wish they sold toy swords in pink. You like your hair long but you don’t like what people assume when they see it long. You like flowers and bugs and dragons. You don’t always mind being called ‘she’, but other days, you can’t stand it.

So which is it?

“Both,” you say, “Both. She and- and he. I’m both. I _am_ both. Is that a problem?”

You conquered your lovestruck anxiety and lifted your head, staring at him challengingly. Because there it was, your decision made, _finally._ It was scary, but it felt right.

Gilbert had leaned around Roderich and was staring at you, something like wonder, maybe a giddy sort of pride, in his eyes. Roderich’s cheeks flushed and he looked towards the piano.

“Not at all,” he answers curtly, and your heart _soars,_ “I think that’s wonderfully unique.”

And then he began to play.

You all became friends, in a weird way that no one could quite make heads or tails of. You and Roderich never start _dating,_ but you do spend a lot of time together. And he does tell you that you’re pretty and holds your hand and goes to movies with you. But Gilbert also tells Roderich that _he’s_ pretty, and holds his hand when you walk home after dark and goes to the movies with you.

When you were twelve, you promised to marry Roderich. He had turned several shades of purple without saying anything. You had taken his silence as acceptance, and he never corrected you. Neither of you have rescinded that agreement.

When you were fourteen, Gilbert told you that you’d both be better off marrying _him_ instead, and you had smacked him with your bookbag and Roderich had turned several shades of purple without saying anything. Neither of you rejected the proposal.

You’re turning twenty in a few days, and it’s a late night at the cake shop. Roderich has sat down stiffly beside Gilbert, who is grinning, nursing a cup of hot cocoa. You have one of your textbooks with you, and Roderich is watching you as you read. He reaches out to absentmindedly tuck stray strands of your hair behind your ear. You smile. Gilbert is knocking one of his feet against yours under the table, toeing at your ankle, and he’s doing god knows what with his other foot because Roderich’s cheeks are turning a particular shade of red.

You love the way Roderich says your name, _Elizabeta,_ like a rising scale. You love the way Gilbert says your name _Li,_ like a short thrust of a sword, or a solid punch. You love the carefree way they both say ‘ _Liza,_ which sounds both razor sharp and delicate, all at once. None of you mention ghosts or past lives or notes written on mirrors in blood. You laugh and you smile and enjoy the night, leaving a million and one things left unsaid.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so I didn't want to put this crap at the beginning of the chapter but.  
> but.  
> I can't. I can't quite articulate. how hard. this was to write.  
> I have. 8. different. versions. of this chapter. And none of them are _short_. I tried to write this, 8 different times. 8. 8 times. 8 times I tried. I. I cannot.  
>  IT just. IT JUST WOULDN'T HAPPEN. IT DIDN'T WANT TO BE WRITTEN.  
> Eight times. Eight.  
> ...  
> Anyways, I won't dwell on how this chapter is like a bad ex-lover to me, and I can't wait to burn all its clothes in a fire while smoking with curlers in my hair and drinking vodka out of a bottle. 
> 
> Moving on. 
> 
> I, personally, consider bigender Hungary to be canon. So. 
> 
> And second, while desperately trying to drag this chapter out of my festering corpse, I decided to go through my tumblr and make a consistent tag for all the post I'd reblogged that made me think about this story so. 
> 
> [My tumblr tag for this story.](http://natcat5.tumblr.com/tagged/dinb)
> 
> If you ever drop by my tumblr and ask me questions about this story and this universe and the characters (which you're free to) check that tag for answers.  
> Once again, thanks for reading!


	14. Yao (2004)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I've gotten such positive feedback for this story since the last chapter. Considering my feelings towards this story tend to be ehhhh at best, it really made me happy. Thank you to everyone who commented and thank you to everyone who enjoys this story!

**May, 2004**

 

The sun is hot for spring, high in the sky and sitting proudly in a sea of blue unobscured and undulled by clouds. The morning damp and residual puddles from the previous day’s rain dry in an instant, the mud hardening into firm ground and the grass vibrant in the daylight. There’s a gentle breeze that’s stirring the leaves, shaking off the last of the raindrops. A soft rustling that blends easily with the birdsong and the whirring wings of the dragonflies and bees.

The river gurgles in the background, already receding from where it had swelled within its banks the day before, and the nymphs look simultaneously pleased and put out. Complaining about the mud and dirt that have been knocked loose, the brown muck that is swirling about their territory. And preening at the temporary swell in the river’s size, laughing as they admire their reflections in each other’s translucent forms.

The tree nymphs shake the water from their leaves and turn them upwards to face the sun, tired from sheltering the smaller woodland creature the previous day and night, and from being buffeted by winds, but otherwise content with their newly saturated soil. New buds unfurl along the tree branches and within the braids of their hair, blooming in the bright light.

Today is a perfect day to go out to the forest. The brightness of the sun and the coolness of the breeze beckons them inwards, the rustling leaves and bird song a welcoming chorus. The triplets and Yong Soo are ecstatic, having spent the previous day confined in their simple house because of the rain. Rainy days make children of fire lethargic at best and sick at worse, and Yong Soo, with sparks of lightning dancing along his stripes, becomes hazardous to stand next to when surrounded by water.

The cloudless day calls to them, and they all leap free of their tangled mess of a house to run wild in the grass, enjoying the freedom. The sparse wood, with its loosely rooted pine trees and gnarled above-surface roots. The vast meadows, with grass that reaches above their ears, the endless amount of wildlife that can be unearthed within it. The craggy stones further up the mountains, with the dips and crevices, entrances to tunnels and caves and places unknown.

Three years they’ve been here, up on the mountain that crowns the valley and the magically charged forest within it. The children have grown, Linh and Tai close to ten, and Yong Soo six, or nearly six. While they are collectively known as ‘the triplets’, Lei is older by a year, at four, and Mei and Xiang are three. No longer babes, but infants.

It’s the longest they’ve been in any one place, and the children call it home without hesitation. The wide open space and freedom to run with their claws and ears and furry paws without fear of persecution. The chance to experiment with their violent powers, the showers of fire and sparks, wind and earth. The chance to _be,_ as they are, with nothing but the sky as their witness.

It’s perfect.

But even so, as the sun climbs higher in the sky the shade and depth of the forest calls to them, entices them to go in, explore. Yong Soo tugs on Yao’s arm and asks if they can go to the forest today. Mei tugs on his other arm and echoes the same, pouting. Xiang climbs up his back and tugs on his ponytail by way of contribution. There’s a chorus of _pleaaaaaase_ and _Teacheeeer!_

Going down the mountain and into the forest, that place saturated with magic, is always an experience. There are dangerous things within its depths, to be sure, the Fae Court being the first on the list, but nothing in the forest is malicious. And anything that _is_ gets chased off by Rajni’s spells, or the mere whisper of Yao’s presence. It is, as Rajni had promised all those years ago, a safe place for them. And the children have loved it every time they’ve gone down.

Linh gets along well with the birds up in the trees, and Tai with the badgers down in their roots. Lei lights fires in his palm for the entranced firefly spirits, and lets them rest on the points of his claws. Yong Soo leaps after everything that moves. Chasing foxes and squirrels through the undergrowth, and laughing playfully when something larger chases him back. The youngest, Mei and Xiang, cling to Yao mostly. Too young and uncontrolled for him to let them dash off on their own. At three, Xiang is usually content to sit on Yao’s shoulders and bat at passing butterflies. He’s polite to all the nymphs and spirits they pass, but can turn into an absolute terror if Yao turns his back for a second. Pulling tails, climbing trees, chasing fairies and accidentally(?) torching bushes in his excitement.

Mei can be just as mischevious, but she also likes Kiku very much, and tends to gravitate towards him if she leaves Yao’s side. Hand clinging to his fur and trying her hardest to not set anything on fire. Xiang sneaking up behind her to pull her hair will set her off though, and they’ll both end up chasing each other around a tree and leaving a warpath of smouldering flora in their wake. _Children._

The Youkai in the forest all treat Kiku with a wary respect. Kitsune are not typically found in North America, and are not typically completely alone. They are also notorious for looking down on other Youkai, and nothing in the forest seems to know how to act around him. Some bow nervously, others flee on sight, and still others stare with distrust and suspicion. As if expecting the kitsune to challenge them for their territory.

Kiku, of course, is not oblivious to the unease, and it makes him even more isolated and awkward. Even three years later, the child is still troublesomely distant. Aloof, stubbornly so. And Yao is unsure what to do with him. How to make him feel more welcomed, and at home. His inability to grow a third tail has hit him hard, and the young fox spends most of his time sulking by the river. Practicing with his powers, speaking with the woodland fox spirits, and sulking.

But there are days when Yao can reach the kitsune. Times that they can sit together without the air being strained and awkward. Kiku does not like to join in the games the other children play. Isn’t interested in human things, in learning to build like Tai and learning numbers like Linh. But he’s not against languages, not against learning the characters for Mandarin and Japanese, languages that are both used by the kitsune in Japan. And not knowing English had opened Kiku up to taunting from Yong Soo, who was delighted to be able to shout insults at him that Kiku wouldn’t be able to understand. As a result, Kiku had begrudgingly accepted English lessons.

Yao will sit with him and practice writing the letters and characters in all the languages. Kiku will be stubborn as always, transforming his paw enough for opposable thumbs and nothing more. But otherwise he’s amiable, seeming legitimately at peace when tracing the shapes and repeating the sounds. The two of them will sit at night and watch the stars, the constellations. Duller than in the mountains of China, but brighter than the region of Japan that Kiku is from. Yao can’t tell if Kiku is homesick, if he has ever truly had a home to miss, but he wishes all the same that the young kitsune would feel comfortable here. That he would come to view the mountain as home, just as they all had.

At the very least, his relations with the other children have improved somewhat. He would never admit it, but Kiku’s contempt towards Spirit Children had evaporated all together. Any display of lofty pride was a show, one easily seen through. He acknowledges that Tai and Linh are in fact older, and treats them with respect. Will indulge Yong Soo’s playful belligerence with indifference, rather than disgust. Will answer Lei’s endless questions, help Xiang if he gets stuck in a tree, and is heartwarmingly gentle with Mei. In the forest, he walks carefully with her. Steadying her if she stumbles, catching her by the back of her dress if she trips. Carrying her over the parts of the stream that are too deep. It gives Yao hope for the future.

The future is something that Yao has been worrying about on a near constant basis. All of his plans, his dreams of giving his children the chance to live both Wild and human lives, seem to become more distant and unattainable with each passing day. Everything is just… _harder,_ more complicated, than he had initially anticipated.

It’s Rajni who is always the one to point it out. Always the one to list off the things the children will need to know how to do, the things they will need to be used to in order to properly integrate into human society.

For instance, Yao had not seen the need for a house. One of those cumbersome and stifling human dwellings. He and the children slept under the trees, or took shelter under the overhangings of rocks and small caverns that existed further up the mountains. But Rajni had gently pointed out that, if he wanted the children to go to school, to interact with humans, they would need to become used to human things. Walls, indoor plumbing, consistently being clothed, the use of cutlery…

All the same, something as confining as a house, a brick human box, had been unappealing to all of them. Yao himself couldn’t bring himself to undertake the project, and it was only Tai’s curiousity that brought it about to fruition.

Tai’s element is earth, the soil and all that sprung from it. Rajni had suggested to the child, still unsettlingly mature for his age, that he might be able to extend his abilities to woodworking some day. To building.

The challenge had excited Tai, more than anything else ever had, and Yao had watched, bemused, as Rajni built simple wooden frames and had Tai try to fortify them with his abilities, redirecting the growth of nearby fauna to cloak the structure. It was inconsistent, patchy, and taxing on the child. But both Tai and Rajni had looked immensely pleased with the progress.

The end result is a mishmash of wooden structures, tied together by overgrown trees and bushes. Branches and vines overtop of the thin wooden walls, the entire roof a canopy of tree tops, and the floor nothing more than overgrown roots, with some areas completely grass. The ‘rooms’ are separated by arching saplings, and the ‘windows’ are loosely covered by hanging leaves. The back of the house is completely overtaken by their vegetable garden, with tomatoes hanging from the walls and carrot tops popping out of the floor. Calling it a ‘house’ is a bit of stretch, probably, but it’s a step in a direction that Yao, admittedly, had been heading towards in a very meandering sort of a way.

They have been here three years, and by all rights, Yao should have gone down to the town by now. No humans even know of their existence up on the mountain, not like his interaction with villages before. For all his talk about integration and living dual lives, he’s kept his family isolated.

It is, perhaps, because of how city-like this town is. Much bigger than a village, full of more human things- streetlights and cars, noise and gas. It’s not as bad as it could be, Yao knows, but not the simplicity he prefers.

So he meanders. He teaches his children what he can. Has a ‘room’ in the ‘house’ with a table, with chairs. With paper and pencils, plates and cutlery, human things. He teaches them written numbers in Kanji. Brings Rajni to teach them English, and about life down in the town. Implements a rule stating that, at least three times in a week, they have to spend the entire day clothed. Linh and Tai don’t mind, Yong Soo tries, but ends up with his clothes torn and hanging off him by the time the sun sets, Lei can usually manage it, as long as nothing startles him and causes him to burst into flames, Xiang will ditch the clothes the second Yao has his back turned, and Mei is too excitable and ends up with smouldering holes in all of her outfits before the sun reaches midday.

Human school seems like a distant, far-off dream. Intermingling with the humans an impossible goal, something Yao can pretend to strive for, but will never reach. Their laughable house, made of the wild and with nothing human about it, makes a poignant example.

And, of course, there’s Kiku. Who refuses to set foot in the ‘house’, and who refuses to put on a human form.

Yao’s worries are many, and it would be nice to take a day to forget about them. To go down his mountain and into the depths of the forest. To let his children play, wild and free. Let them shed their clothes and forget the duality of their nature, for just a little while.

But even as Mei and Yong Soo tug at his arms and Xiang tugs at his ponytail the tree nymphs in the nearby trees whisper caution. Lean down to tell Yao that their sisters in the valley say the sorcerers are out. That they’re walking through the forest.

The Sorcerers in the forest.

Their presence is a continuous thorn in his side, and Yao will never not be irritated by the untimeliness of their arrival. It’s true that they’ve never caused trouble. Never ventured up the mountain, or even near it. Never raised complaints from the Youkai in the forest, other than the typical contempt towards humans. And never given Rajni any reason for alarm.

But their mere presence is stifling. Yao dislikes that he has to coordinate his outings with his children around the activities of sorcerers. _Freedom_ was the staple selling point of this new home, and it’s irritating that it’s conditional to the movement of these so-called ‘researchers’.

Yao has observed them himself of course. Glamours aren’t his specialty, but he’s capable of them, especially in this smaller, easier hidden form. He’s gone down to the forest and watched them, tried to gauge their threat level for himself. The woman and the man, both always respectful in their dealings with the Wild. With their notebooks and sketchpads, none of the new technology Yao had expected. The child tags along sometimes, lacking the dark aura that surrounds his parents, but with the same sight, and the same enthusiastic scribbling on a notepad.

They’re clumsy and intrusive, painfully human even with the hum of destructive energy, the mark of the sorcery contracts, that hangs about them. They’re not doing anything _wrong,_ and have honoured their agreement with Rajni to the letter, but still, Yao dislikes them.

“And that’s the problem,” Rajni had said when Yao had relayed his observations, slightly admonishing, “The distrust without reason. Disliking them on _principle._ Yao, they’re not terrible people. In fact, I’d hazard to say they’re the best thing that’s happened to the inbetween community in awhile. All they’re here to do is lessen the fear. To show that not everything Wild is out to kill humans, and while doing so, show the Wild that not everything human is out to exploit them and do them harm. I know you won’t, and I know why you won’t, but I wish there was a way you could sit down and talk with them without feeling you were putting your family in danger.”

Rajni seems to be on quite good terms with the sorcerer woman, a fact Yao’s not sure if he’s displeased or comforted by. And he obviously believes very much in what he’s saying, and what the sorcerers are doing. But the fact remains; sorcerers have a long history of abuse, and a reputation for being deceitful and sly. Constricting though their current arrangement may be, Yao refuses to do anything that could have harmful repercussions for his children.

So he tells them no, heeds the warnings of the tree nymphs and dislodges Yong Soo and Mei from his arms, pulls Xiang off his back. Ignores their pouting, their choruses of complaints, and herds them towards the long-grassed meadows, telling them to play hide and seek, but only tracking by scent. He asks Linh to watch them, ten years old and perfectly capable of rounding up her rowdy siblings, and looks on fondly as they all head off, playfully tackling one another and boasting.

Kiku, of course, heads in the opposite direction. Up the mountain, to spend the day by himself in the caves.

_Sigh._

Yao’s alone now, standing in front of their barely-a-house home. The grass tickles his bare feet and the tumbling wind spirits buffet him playfully, the leaves of the house roof dancing and the fabric of his clothing billowing about.

He wishes they could have all gone into the forest today.

As it is, today he will be venturing in by himself. Maybe it’s petty, but he wants to see what those sorcerers are doing. What venture brought them into the forest to ruin his outing with his children.

The air in the forest is different then the air on the mountain. It’s thicker, heavy with magic, with glamours and mist. With illusions and secrets, the disembodied laughter and the feeling of a hundred eyes on you at all times. The whispers in the leaves, between the roots, in the blooms of flowers. The presence of the animals, not muted and dulled, but keen and intelligent. Their gazes watchful, respectful. When the wind blows the forest canopy moves as one, as a great roaring, living creature, echoed by the laughter of the nymphs, the whispers of the spirits, and the chattering of the animals below.

It feels like times long gone. It feels like the old world, before the humans robbed the life from everything. It feels painfully and nostalgically familiar, and when he is here alone, Yao is made breathless with the enormity of it.

But there is a disturbing presence, all the same. An out of place element that Yao picks up on immediately, and he grimaces.

 _It’s easy for Rajni to speak of acceptance,_ he thinks bitterly, _because he is of the humans himself. He doesn’t understand how jarring it is, how out of place they feel. How impossible it is to feel comfortable with them here._

And then Yao pauses, uncomfortable by his petty thoughts, and then ashamed, remembering that many Youkai would say the same when speaking of Spirit Children.

He spins his glamour, lets his scales reflect the dappling sunlight and take on the shades of the leaves and bark. Lets himself fade into the forest, imperceptible to any eye. The heat of his magic singes the branches and loam that he steps on, and he whispers apologies to the spirits of the plants as he moves silently through the trees.

He finds the humans closer to the town then he had feared, but deeper into the forest than he would have preferred. It’s the woman and the child, today. And they have no notebooks, nor sketchbooks present. They are not badgering the river spirits or attempting to coax an interview out of the wind, but are sitting in the shade of a tree, nestled between the roots with a bemused nymph lounging on a branch above them.

They are also not alone.

There’s another child, sitting on the other side of the woman, leaning against her leg. Yao’s eyes are drawn to him instantly. Partly because he’s never seen him before, and partly because he’s covered in flower fairies. The floral spirits sit on his shoulders, in his hair, and in the delicate cup of his hands. A nervous bird spirit hops onto his knee, and another onto his shoe. The child seems aware of them, but makes no move to shoo them off, or to do anything to startle them. He smiles softly whenever a fairy weaves another flower into his hair and gently rubs his finger down the transparent beak of one of the bird spirits.

 _This,_ Yao notes, _must be the other child Rajni was talking about._

The child that, according to Rajni, also lives in the forest, but close enough to the town to not really be of consequence. A child with natural-born sight, who has been taken in by the sorcerers in lieu of his own family lacking his abilities.

“Daria and I argued about it,” Rajni had said, lips pressed together at the memory. “He probably would have grown out of it, stopped seeing things, if she had left him alone. That’s what usually happens with children like him. But now he’s going to have to live with this the rest of his life. And she knows she can’t train him as a sorcerer, either. The Councils in Europe wouldn’t allow it. She thinks she can protect him, but how do you protect a child from being ostracized from his own family?” Then he had sighed, turned to Yao and said, “But there’s no cause for you to be concerned, Yao. That child has no magic to speak of. Extraordinary sight, and according to Daria, a natural affinity for interacting with the Wild, but he’s a normal human otherwise. Harmless.”

There’s a large book open on the woman’s lap, and both of the children are leaning in and staring at it, their faces matching pictures of delight. Her voice carries, clear and strong, punctuated with theatrical gasps and low tenors as she reads, eliciting peals of delighted laughter from the boys. Everytime the other boy laughs, the not-sorcerer, the fairies flutter off his body briefly, giggling. And Yao watches in amazement as the tree nymph above them lazily lets leaves and spring blossoms drift down onto their heads and in their laps. The friendliest he’s ever seen a nymph in this forest.

“Humans and the Wild _can_ co-exist, Yao,” Rajni had once said to him firmly, looking more stubborn and naïve then his age should allow, “They can interact in a manner completely devoid of violence, of hatred. I believe it’s possible, and so do you, otherwise you wouldn’t have come here.”

Yao watches as the sorcerer child blows a leaf of his nose, and looks startled when a flower fairy lands on it instead, catching the leaf and staring at him from behind it. The other child laughs so hard his body shakes, and all of the fairies fly up in a flurry, showering them all with petals. The sorceress- Daria –smiles and spreads her hands to catch them, and her child plucks one out of the air and carefully offers it to the fairy still perched precariously on his nose.

Yao can imagine Rajni seeing a scene like this and being filled with hope. A promise for a future with humans that respected the Wild, and could live within it without the mindless destruction that seemed to accompany their species everywhere.

 _It’s so easy when they’re young,_ Yao thinks to himself, fading back into the shadows, the innocent, carefree laughter echoing around the forest. _But time ruins all things, and I’m not willing to bet my children’s lives on a single afternoon spent laughing in a shower of flower petals._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter wasn't originally supposed to exist? I had another chapter all planned out and half done, but then I realized I hadn't really done anything with the East Asian group in awhile, and then I realized that I posted the _last_ Yao chapter on Father's Day last year, and it would be pretty funny to post another one a year later. So. I started this chapter yesterday and finished it today! hehe
> 
> Anyways, I think you guys will really enjoy the next two chapters. I have two specific dates in mind that I want to post them on. I think you guys should be able to figure it out....;)  
> Thanks again for all your reviews and support!


	15. Matthew (2009-2010)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter was supposed to be out July 1st  
> but then it decided it wanted to be 7000 words instead of 3000. so.
> 
> also, there's some french. they don't really say anything important. it's okay if you don't understand it.

Was he born on a cold winter’s night?

It would make sense, certainly.

He watches snow dance at his fingertips, powder-white and soft. It crystallizes to ice where it touches his nails, spiderwebbing patterns down his fingers. Objectively, he knows that the feeling is cold, but he also knows that the cold he feels isn’t the same as the cold other people feel. Other people are different.

But he knows that, in reality, _he_ is the ‘other’, not they.

 _Mathieu,_ a name made for being breathed out in a cloud of fog on a cold night. It sounds just like an empty, snow-covered street, with a lonely lamppost casting a pale golden glow. It is old Quebec, cigarette smoke and angry curses, old bars and ghosts, the winds and water from the river blanketing everything, smothering it.

 _Mathieu, Mathieu._ Who gave him that name? _Was_ he born on a cold winter’s night? Or was he born on a summer day, glacial skin and frozen teardrops under the full glare of the sun? Was he outside? Could he see the stars? Could he see the sky? And who was it that brought him into this world? Who? Who breathed this life of ice and snow into his stiff, frost-covered lungs?

Just who is he, _Mathieu?_

_\--_

Here is what he _can_ say.

There was a time when he was nearly nothing. A pair of eyes staring out from a snow storm, a dusting of hair barely visible within a snowdrift. An entity that drifted and wisped through existence in the winter, and faded into a nearly unbreakable slumber when the snows melted.

He wakes up, he becomes _something,_ because someone sees him.

_Maman, il y a un garcon dans cet arbre!_

He becomes acutely aware of a _gaze,_ of someone’s eyes on him, and for a moment his form wavers, and solidifies.

He looks down.

A woman is pulling a child away, chastising him for making up stories, deaf to the child’s protest, or the way they keep twisting in her arms, looking back, looking straight at him, staring.

He stares back, until the child is gone, and he is left alone, sitting in a tree.

He hadn’t known he was sitting in a tree.

He hadn’t known he _was._

Minimal existence is impossible to describe, because when it’s happening to you, you don’t have any concept of description in the first place. So when he becomes tangible, when he realizes that he _exists,_ and looks down to find that he does, in fact have a body, going back to, or even thinking about what he was before is beyond his capabilities.

 _(It was like being a snowflake,_ he’ll say one day, blushing at the overused metaphor, _because you know-there’s something that makes you ‘you’ right? but at the same time, your indistinguishable from a great mess of other things, and it would be impossible for anyone to pick you out, to see you individually. Did that make sense…? Ah, I’m sorry, sorry-)_

He looks down at himself, wiggles his fingers in the pale light, and thinks _my name is Mathieu._

_But who am I?_

_\--_

Things become difficult, once he becomes tangible. It’s a mix of his own incomprehensible memories, and the troubles of being discovered sitting naked in a tree, with no way of explaining how you got there.

The thing is- it’s strange. He _knows_ things. His name, where he is _Canada, Quebec,_ and that he is – in some sense at least – 11 years old. He knows that he’s naked, and embarrassed by it, and that it is winter, and he should be cold. But he’s not.

He’s not cold at all.

People pull him down from the tree, wrap him up in a blanket and usher him inside a building. They ask him questions, shine lights in his eyes, and all he can say, over and over, is his name and age. It’s all he knows.

He knows, instinctively, not to mention the curl of frost around his fingertips, the ice that gathers along his lashes at night, and the fact that he does not feel the cold.

\--

 _Mathieu_ sounds like blustery winds on a gray day, snow swirling through the back alleys, kicking up the fallen leaves and newspapers scattered across the ground.

 _Mathieu_ sounds like the rattling moans in the old house cellars, drifting up through the grates in the street and blending with the wheezing winter gusts.

 _Mathieu_ sounds like an ancient church, weathered stone intimately familiar with the bite of winter, snow a white halo on the crowning cross.

 _Mathieu_ sounds like a city he knows very well, but has forgotten.

It scares him.

\--

He moves, in the following year, in a way that is vivid and startling for a child that has only known non-existence. He moves from the perplexed police to concerned orphanage caretakers to somewhat wary foster parents. Then to another pair of somewhat wary foster parents.

He does not have a particularly bad time anywhere, but he is uneasy, because he is painfully aware that he is _other_ and they are not.

It occurs to him then, that he might always feel _other._ That he will always be surrounded by people who don’t understand what it is to feel frost on your fingertips, to breathe out gusts of snow and to cry frozen tears. It becomes so much more obvious to him in the summer, when the winter within him recedes and he blinks his eyes for what feels like the first time.

In the summer, it’s like he can think more clearly. He knows now, that in the winter he is fundamentally strange. The snow and the frost sing in his blood in a way that is unignorable, and he knows he interacted oddly with people. That he was distant, was barely there. In the summer, it’s harder to call frost to his fingers, but it’s easier to have a conversation. Everything that makes him _other_ starts to thaw, and, for the first time, he is able to connect with people.

He likes it. He likes talking with people. He likes knowing how to smile when people tell a joke, instead of having his thoughts move sluggishly along, like a slushy half-frozen river.

He is afraid for winter to come again.

\--

The foster family he’s with has a gathering. He knows they are making preparations to pass him along, and that’s fine. They’re older, with no desire to raise another child to completion. This was always meant to be temporary.

(he calls upon some of that winter ice, that numbness, to make it hurt less)

The faces blur together, a little. He can feel the chill of winter, the creeping frost, creeping upwards inside his chest. The cold is nipping at his heels, and he blinks his eyes again and again, to clear the invisible flakes off of his eyelashes.

He stares at the gathered people, the family of the couple who are passing him along, and he’s distant. It’s all distant. He can feel himself fading into the background, a colourless wash of faded gray, half melted snow at the side of the road. It’s a struggle to gather his thoughts, to reassemble some semblance of a presence, and he watches dully as gazes pass over him. As their eyes stare right through him, like he’s not even there.

He doesn’t blame them. He doesn’t _feel_ all there.

It’s October, and there is a dusting of snow on the windowsill. Winter does not officially begin for another two months, but calendars and time, numbers and dates, they have no bearing on the clouds and the cold. On the gusts of wind and the showers of ice and sleet.

Everything is gray.

He sits quietly in the back of the room, drinking a warm coke and having as little presence as possible. He stirs his sluggish thoughts every so often, tries to prod himself, push himself off the stool he’s sitting on and forward. But his legs feel stiff and numb. The glass is cold where he’s touching it, and he feels the condensation turn to frost under his fingers.

He doesn’t notice that there’s a girl staring at him. Not for the longest while. When he does, it’s because she’s a splash of colour in his peripheral vision, a blur of blue and red. She’s got dark hair and dark skin and dark eyes, and when she sees that he’s noticed her, she smiles blindingly, skipping over to him with her red hair ribbons streaming behind her and her unseasonal dress dancing around her heels. A bright summer blue.

“ _Salut_ ,” she says, and he feels like he’s staring into the St. Lawrence River on the rare days where it looked blue instead of murky. The sun bright and shining on the rippling waves. A rare memory of warmth, that dissipates as he blinks.

He blinks again. Reminds himself that there is no snow weighing down his eyelashes. No ice encasing his tongue. _R_ _éveilles, Mathieu. Tu n’es pas plus un bonhomme de neige._

“ _Salut,”_ he replies. And then, because the silent pause before he replied stretched too long, “ _Desol_ _é,”_ with his head ducked down.

The girl raises an eyebrow, head tilted to the side. “ _Pourquoi?”_ she asks, and he doesn’t know how to answer that, he’s so used to the apologies just slipping out. He feels his cheeks warming, always a strange sensation, and he folds in a little, hands clasped together and gaze averted to the side. Shoulders half lifted in a shrug.

She makes a humming sound in the back of her throat, obviously dissatisfied with his non-answer, than places her hand on her hips. “ _Je m’appelle Angelique. Et tu?”_

 

Her eyes are bright, friendly, and he’s not used to such clear gazes on him when he’s being held by winter thralls. But there are ripples of the ocean in her dress, and sunlight in her eyes, and he wants to push past the numbness. To talk.

“ _…Mathieu_ ,” he says, after a moment. The name pulled from a mess of hazy, insensible memories. It’s true, and it’s his, but it never seems to fit in the right way.

She smiles and her hands leave her hips, clasping behind her back instead. “ _Salut, Mathieu,”_ she says, the slightest giggle in her voice, _“Je suis venue ici avec mon fr_ _ére, mais je ne sais pas où il est allé. Puis-je s’asseoir ici avec toi?”_

Her French is heavily accented, and Parisian besides, and it’s only the simplicity of her speech that allows him to parse out her words. Even so, he blinks lethargically at her for a few seconds, before nodding stiffly in response.

She flounces down beside him in a flare of blue fabric, sighing as she pulls up her knees and rests her chin in the palms of her hands.

 _“Des_ _olé, je sais que ma Français est…”_ she makes a waggling motion with her palm and frowns before turning to him, _“Parles-tu Anglais?”_

He does. Somewhat. He’s been learning English since he’s been at school. But he also _knows_ it. The same way he knows his name. It’s rusty with disuse, and awkward, and he knows he was never fluent. But he can speak it, and fairly well at that.

“ _Ouais_ ,” he answers, and then, “Yes, _et tu?”_

“Yes,” she says immediately, “I’m as fluent in English as I am in French. But apparently my accent doesn’t garble my words as badly in English. Can you understand me alright?”

She seems to be trying her very hardest to speak slowly and clearly, but her thick accent is still present, and the sentence is peppered with words he doesn’t know. But the extra effort it takes to understand the English helps shake off some of the frost from his mind. The extra concentration needed keeps him from slipping back into that cold, distant lethargy.

He nods.

“Good!” she says, brightly. “I know my accent can be hard to understand. Do you know where I’m from? Can you guess?” She’s practically vibrating where she’s sitting, hopping up and down in her excitement, and Mathieu feels guilt twisting in his stomach. 

He shakes his head. “ _Non_ …sorry. I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

Her smile doesn’t dim, and she waves her hand through the air, as if fanning away all his apologies. “That’s okay! I’m from Seychelles! It’s in Africa, or, beside Africa. It’s beautiful! Do you know it?”

He shakes his head again.

“That’s okay, most people don’t,” she continues, unperturbed. “They think I’m from Hay-ee-tee, or somewhere else in the West Indies. Not as far as _Afrique._ I don’t even know if they speak the same French there! Hey, Mathieu, my French is not bad if not for my accent, right?”

The direct use of his name makes him jump, and he fumbles a bit, staring down at his shoes and twisting his hands together.

“U-um, I think…?” he begins nervously, suddenly flustered and losing words, “I-it is like Europe-French. S-so it’s a little hard for me…”

“Oh, _right,_ ” she says, nodding to herself as if struck by a sudden understanding, “It’s very different, Quebecois, isn’t it _?_ Francis- _mon fr_ _ére –_ he says speaking the French here is like gargling. He’s from France. _Paris._ He’s my _adopted_ brother. And he’s the one who ‘fixed’ my French so that it’s _Parisian_ now _._ Him and some grumpy tutors. Mathieu, you should hear me speak _my_ French Patois, it’s _beautiful._ But Francis’s _Maman_ and _Papa_ don’t like it, so I don’t.”

He blinks a few times, a bit lost by her rapid flurry of English. But she’s staring at him, apparently waiting for a response, so he parses out the words he understood and attempts to pull a reply from his muddled brain.

“You’re…” he begins, hesitant, “Adopted…?”

“ _Oui!_ ” She replies, apparently satisfied with his two-word answer. “One…and…a half? Yes, just about. Almost two years ago. They were on vacation in Seychelles and just! Adopted me! Just like that! And off to Paris I went. Isn’t that something, Mathieu? Can you imagine? It was like a fairytale, right down to the blonde hair and blue eyes. I though Francis was my prince. Isn’t that funny? I thought he might marry me. But I prefer him as my brother. And he already _has_ a princess. Mathieu, do you believe in fairytales?”

Her eyes are wide and earnest as she turns to him, and he wants to give her an answer that will make her smile, or laugh. But he doesn’t want to lie either. He remembers fairytales; he’s read a few, in the foster home. And he thinks he should probably think of them more, considering he was born anew from a snow-covered tree. Considering his insides are made of frost. But he doesn’t think what he is, whatever he is, constitutes a fairytale. At least, not the pleasant ones found in children’s storybooks.

“…I don’t know,” he answers truthfully, and is relieved when Angelique doesn’t look put out or upset. She just smiles, and points a finger at him teasingly.

“You should,” she says, playfully firm, “I do. Francis does. We’re _in_ a fairytale, did you know?”

“Because his parents adopted you?” answers Mathieu quietly, the weight of three unsuccessful foster homes weighing heavily in his chest.

“Yes!” she agrees brightly, missing the change in his mood. “But they only did that because he knew who I was before he ever met me.”

He stares at her for a moment, face puzzled, before dropping his gaze back down to his shoes.

“I...I’m sorry? I think maybe I’m not understanding…”

“You’re understanding fine, probably,” she reassures, still beaming, “And you know what Mathieu? I think that-,”

“Angel? C’est tu?”

Mathieu startles a little, head jerking upwards at the sound of a deep voice. Angelique whirls to face it, face delighted. She waves one hand enthusiastically, and grins when a man with pale blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail waves back, emerging from another room with a drink in his hand.

“Here I am, Francis!” she calls out happily, “I’ve been talking with Mathieu here, in English because my accent is bad. He’s nice! Is he a cousin? Say hello, Francis! Say hello, Mathieu!”

Francis raises an eyebrow, bemused, and Mathieu shrinks back against the step, suddenly feeling put on the spot.

Francis is clearly a lot older than both of them, at least a teenager. Maybe even older, considering the stubble on his chin. Mathieu wasn’t expecting to meet him so abruptly, or at all really. His conversation with Angelique felt like it was occurring in an isolated bubble. It was so unusual, so unlike the way he usually interacted with people. He almost forgot he was sitting in a house filled with people he couldn’t talk to, filled with by a family that he’d never get to know. That he was leaving.

“ _Salut,”_ he says softly, ignoring the painful twisting of his stomach.

“Salut, Mathieu,” replies Francis, with a soft smile. “Has Angelique been talking your ear off? I apologize. She likes meeting new people, and there are no other children your age here.”

His English is very good, almost without an accent, and Mathieu can’t find his voice to respond. He’s intimidated by the age difference, and by his own clumsy, halting English.

 “Francis!” exclaims Angelique, indignant voice cutting in and rescuing Mathieu from having to reply. “We’ve been having a _conversation._ Both ways! Right, Mathieu?” 

He startles a little, feeling put on the spot, but then he finds himself smiling a little, down at his shoes again. A conversation. Speaking with another person. When it’s almost _winter._ He has been doing that, hasn’t he?

“Yes,” he answers, to his shoes again, still nervous about his own English.

“Don’t let her boss you around just because she’s loud,” says Francis, still amused, “If she’s bothering you just say so.”

“No!” he says immediately, and then wilts back, arms folded on top of one another, “S-she’s not. Bothering me. We’ve just been talking. Um.”

“Oh?” Francis asks, turning to Angel and smiling, “About what?”

“About us!” Angel beams, gesturing between the two of them with her hands, “I was telling Mathieu about where I’m from, and about how you adopted me, and about how it’s like a fairytale- except you’re my brother, not my prince.”

Francis snorts into the drink he’s sipping, “Yes, that is an important distinction, I think.”

“Francis is _old,_ ” giggles Angelique, “He’ll be 18 in the summer. And then! Guess where we’re going! Guess Mathieu, guess!”

Mathieu’s starting to feel tired out. “I don’t know?”

“We’re moving to California! Just me and Francis!”

“That’s…nice?”

“Do you know _why_ we’re moving to California?”

He shakes his head.

“Because of the fairytale!”

“Yours and Francis’s?”

“ _Oui!_ I didn’t tell you the whole story! Francis, tell Mathieu the whole story!”

Francis looks hesitant.

“Oh, I bet he’ll believe it. I can just tell he’ll believe it. Francis, _please?”_

Francis rubs a thumb along the stubble on his chin, looking between them. His pensive expression gives way and he sighs, dropping his hand to rest on his hip.

“Well, if _la petite soeur_ insists,” he concedes, reaching down to pinch one of Angel’s cheeks, before turning to Mathieu.

Francis explains, in a matter of fact tone, that an old friend of his (“Old _girlfriend!”_ Angelique interrupts loudly, while Francis tsks and smiles), has a somewhat uncanny gift of foresight. An ability, one might argue, to see the future. Francis went to her for advice sometimes. Or rather, he visited her to enjoy her company, and was given advice that she _strongly_ suggested he did not ignore.

Usually it was simple things. Things like, _Consider staying in next Sunday, it may rain._ And, _There’s a high probability of you getting hit by a bus the next time it rains, so please take that into consideration when making your plans for next Sunday._ And also, _Your ex-boyfriend is going to be on the bus that will hit you next Sunday when it starts to rain, and will use the event as a sign that God wants you to get back together. So it’s your choice, but I would recommend not going out next Sunday. Also, you left the faucet in your bathroom running._

Her advice on his last visit had been, _I’m sorry Francis, you weren’t happy in France, and you’re not happy in Canada either. Did you know California is lovely this time of year? You should give that a try. Here, let me write down the exact location of the town I think you’d like._ Followed by, _But you should take a trip to Seychelles first. There’s a sweet little girl who would also find California lovely._

 “ ‘A girl made of the ocean itself’,” Angel adds with a secretive smile, ignoring the sharp look and arched eyebrow that Francis sends her way. She giggles, and Mathieu can’t help but smile as well. With her flowing blue dress and sunny smile, it’s not hard to imagine someone describing Angelique so poetically.

Francis continues, explaining how his friend had never given him reason to doubt her before, and not lacking in the means to get there, he’d flown down to the island at the first available moment. Angelique had been the first person he’d met off the plane, a little girl hired to hand flowers out to tourists as they exited. Her dress had had the ocean printed onto it.

The story comes out in between pleased, fond giggles from Angelique and amused chuckles and warm smiles from Francis. It _is_ something like a fairytale.

Speaking with Francis and Angelique is nice. They’re both friendly, warm individuals, and they both speak slowly and carefully, so he can understand them through the thickness of their accents, and the unfamiliarity of his rusty English.

And their story _is_ something like a fairytale. The dashing Frenchman, sweeping the orphaned island girl off her feet. Arranging for her adoption.

They keep talking, and Angel tells him about how much she misses the ocean. How she misses the heavy rain, the wind through the jungle, the sand between her toes. And how much she _doesn’t_ miss plastering on a fake smile for tourists, or having kids her own age talk down to her and pull on her pigtails. She didn’t like being another tourist attraction, a cute island girl to hand them flowers and start off their vacation on the quaint island.

Francis talks about his father’s overseas stocks and his mother’s parties and charity balls. He speaks vaguely, leaving a lot unsaid. Speaking of nannies, being ‘a bit unruly’ in his early teens, meeting Jeanne, her unfortunate illness that kept her bedridden, moving around France, travelling around Canada, and finally convincing his parents to let him try living in America on his own.

“They dislike seeing me unhappy,” explains Francis with a dismissive wave, “And have little reason not to indulge in my whims. It wasn’t hard, arranging to come to America. And as Jeanne told me, I wasn’t particularly happy in France, or in Canada either. And I visited the town - it was cute. Quaint, but lively. I don’t know if we’ll end up staying, but I think Angel and I will enjoy the summer there.”

He gives Angel a look that seems to be saying more than his words did, but Mathieu can’t say for sure, because there were gaps where his English is lacking. What he does understand, is that Francis and Angel won’t be staying in Canada. They’re going somewhere far away, somewhere sunny, that the winter doesn’t touch.

He’s jealous, and a little hollow. But he tries not to show it, because Angel’s excited grin and bubbling laughter, like a water brook, make something thaw inside his chest. And Francis’s flawless English and Parisian French might be intimidating, but the man himself is kind. He likes them, very much, and that warmth, the thaw of the winter chill, spreads inside his chest as they keep talking. As Angel tells him about the huge rainstorms that shake her island, as Francis describes the lights of Paris, gorgeous and gaudy and illuminating and suffocating all at once. As they talk about the strange pie that their aunt brought for dinner and the roast Francis is sure their uncle is going to burn. As they talk about the weather, the differences between Quebec and France, how Angel doesn’t mind the cold as much as she thought she would. How her favourite season is fall.

Mathieu says that his favourite season is summer, and Francis smiles and says he’s the same.

It’s the best night of his life that he can remember.

And when it’s over, and they leave, he feels like he’s surrounded on all sides by towering snowbanks, threatening to topple over and smother him for good.

The party ends, the house empties, and his temporary foster parents turn to him with vacant smiles. They will not be his foster parents for much longer, and they know it. He knows it.

The house is empty. The winter winds outside are howling.

He’s not going to see Angel and Francis again.

He feels cold.

\--

The echo of his name is lonelier then ever, like it’s reverberating around an empty street. Skipping along the cobblestone roads before slipping through the sewer grates and being carried away down the St. Lawrence. Lost.

His name, tied to a past he can’t remember, to a person he doesn’t think he is anymore. To a boy whose identity has been smothered under piles of snow and ice. Trapped beneath the frozen river. Lost.

He is not who he was.

The cold of his own breath, the slush of his frigid blood, they all trap him. Encase him in ice. He can’t connect to his past, but he’s stuck in place, incapable of reaching towards the future.

The world, the people he wants to be with, the person he wishes he could be, are all behind a glass he can’t crack. His face pressed against it, lips blue and breath too cold to cause the window to fog.

Whatever existence is left to _Mathieu_ is a lonely one.

\--

It’s weird, how much he misses Angelique and Francis, after the party is over and they go home.

It was just a single conversation, a chat on the stairs of a house he was leaving, in the middle of a party for a family he wasn’t a part of. But Angelique had _seen_ him, not an easy feat, especially when there was frost in the air. And Francis had been nice, had been kind.

It’s weird to think about his life before being found. It’s weird to think- _I didn’t exist a year and a half ago._ But even if he’s not _thinking_ about it, he never forgets it. Because he’s pretty sure that that’s the reason, that all that time he spent invisible, a snowflake in a snowstorm, is the reason people have such a hard time seeing him now.

But Angelique had looked right at him. Smiled, even. Sunshine and sea water. A girl made of the ocean itself.

He really liked her. He misses her.

As promised, the older couple he was with, the relatives of Francis and Angelique, pass him on at the end of the month. There had been a part of him, a small part, that had hoped he’d be able to stay for Christmas. On the off chance that Francis and Angelique would be at the family dinner. That he’d get to see them one last time.

But on Christmas, he’s in a group home, smashed between a dozen other kids at a too small table, clutching his gift of socks and a pillow because if he puts it down for a second someone will steal it.

Christmas ends, New Years’ passes, and he doesn’t move from where he is. That winter cold envelops him entirely. Freezes his tongue, makes his eyelids heavy, and leaves him with less presence then a stain on the wall, or a slow moving design of frost, creeping across a window. The March thaws do little to shake him out of his lethargy, especially when it snows again in the beginning of April. Someone steals his pillow, again, and he doesn’t even notice.

He gets called downstairs one day, when everyone else is outside enjoying the first traces of spring emerging as April comes to a close, and he is inside, thumbing mindlessly through an abused comic book, missing several pages. It takes him a few lethargic blinks to register that he’s being summoned, and then he shuffles downstairs with his head ducked down between his shoulders, wondering what he might have done wrong.

When he walks into the sitting room, it’s not the disciplinary committee that sits waiting for him, but the liaison from the Director of Youth Protection, with a startlingly well-dressed woman sitting across from him. They both turn as he enters the room, and he shrinks down further, the painted on smile of the liaison doing nothing to ease his concerns.

“Mathieu,” says the liaison, still smiling, “This is Mrs. Bonnefoy. She’s a relative of the last foster family you were with, the Babeaux, and is interested in taking you in.”

“Adopting, actually,” says Mrs. Bonnefoy, in a sharp, crisp tone that automatically has Mathieu feeling intimidated, “No need for a trial period. Just set us up with the paperwork and we’ll have him along.”

The liaison looks strained. Mathieu tries not to look stunned.

“…In any case, before any decision is made, I think it would be good if the two of you had chat,” he says after a moment, rising from his chair. “There’s no room for hasty choices when placing a child in a family.”

The man exits the room as he’s speaking, almost like he’s running away from Mrs. Bonnefoy and her tight hairbun, bright red lips, and carefully manicured nails. Leaving Mathieu alone, standing in the doorframe with his hands tucked into the pocket of his hoodie.

Mrs. Bonnefoy gestures for him to come closer, and he inches into the room, wondering what sort of person- what sort of _parent_ she might be.

“Mathieu, let me just set this straight from the start,” she says, not giving him a moment to introduce himself, to sit down, or to even say hello. “It’s not really me who’s adopting you, it’s my son, Francis. You met him last October, at Rochelle’s house during Thanksgiving, yes?”

It takes him a few seconds to process her flurry of rapid, Parisian French, and then even longer to find his voice, his mouth suddenly dry. Memories of that night seem half like a dream, some days. The one time he can remember feeling something close to warmth. Feeling at ease, comfortable with other people. In the depths of winter, he hadn’t even been sure it really happened.

“Francis?” he echoes wondrously, eyes wide, “Francis and Angelique?”

“Yes, that’s right,” affirms Mrs. Bonnefoy, tapping her nails on the table, “They thought you were a cousin. Angelique was sending letters for you to Rochelle’s house for months before they learned that it had only been a temporary arrangement. Poor girl was devastated. Francis was quite upset too.”

Mathieu’s chest feels tight all of a sudden, and he feels like…he doesn’t know how he feels. Like it’s hard to breathe. Like his head is pounding. They were upset? About him? But not…not _with_ him. About letters not reaching him. About him being sent away.

“Oh please, don’t cry,” says Mrs. Bonnefoy sharply, table tapping stopping abruptly. “I can’t handle things like that at _all_.”

Mathieu looks at her in surprise, and then pulls his hand out of his sweater pocket, reaching up to touch his face.

His eyelashes are damp, stuck together with moisture. A single wet track is beginning to snake its way down his cheek. Water. Not ice. Not frost.

He doesn’t remember ever crying tears that hadn’t frozen on his lashes. He doesn’t think it’s ever happened.

“Those aren’t tears of horror, I hope,” says Mrs. Bonnefoy with a frown, startling Mathieu out of his thoughts and causing him to drop his hand abruptly, “You _are_ alright with going with Francis, aren’t you? If you don’t want to-,”

“ _Please,”_ interrupts Mathieu, his voice breaking with a sob he hadn’t been aware he was holding in. The outburst surprises him, and he recoils as Mrs. Bonnefoy raises her eyebrow, sinking down into his sweater.

“I-,” he inhales sharply, “I would like that. T-to go. W-with Francis a-and Angel.” Angelique, with her bright smile and blue summer dress and the way she could see him. She could _see_ him. And Francis with his kind eyes and funny laugh and interesting stories. All their warmth and all their warmth and all their warmth. The intense _want_ of it washes over him. Seizes the inside of his chest and _pulls._ For _Mathieu,_ for the person he’s been since he came out of that tree, there has never been anything promised to him but winter. Everything else was transient. Everything and everyone else passed through his life and left without a word. And he knows- he hopes –but he _knows,_ from the memory of that one conversation, that feeling of _warmth,_ that Francis and Angelique will be different. They’re already different. And he wants, so so badly, to feel that again.

He can’t remember wanting anything so badly in his life, however short that memory is.

“Please,” he repeats, quieter, hands together and eyes cast downwards. He says it like a prayer. Like a wish. Like a wish and a prayer together.

“Well,” says Mrs. Bonnefoy stiffly after a beat of silence, as if the sudden outburst of emotion made her uncomfortable, “I’m glad to hear it. Francis is quite set on taking you with him, and we like to keep him happy. So it’s good to see you’re on board.”

She clears her throat and straightens, plastering the sharp smile back on her face.

“Look, I’d like to get through this all quickly and efficiently, if possible,” she says, picking a pen up off the table and tapping it against the table instead of her nails. “There’s supposed to be inspections, approval, what not from the DYP, but we _just_ finished the process for Angelique a year or so ago, and I told them nothing’s changed since then, so they can fast-track it for you. Francis wants to move to California by the end of the summer, after all.” Mrs. Bonnefoy waves her hand airily, as if dismissing standard legal practices and the entirety of the foster care system in Canada. The gesture reminds him of Francis, and he’s filled with longing, a desire for everything to be as simple as she says.

“Is…is that allowed?” he asks, swallowing nervously.

“No,” she replies curtly, “Unless you’re rich.”

\--

Spring is a strange time.

The ground is always wet with melted snow, slush caked on sidewalks, smeared on the roads. There’s a chill, a sting of persistent frost, and a wind that rattles through bones.

But even so, there’s the promise of warmth in the air. A break in the thick canopy of cold and cloud. The continuous sensation of _thawing._ Of an ease in the ice.

Spring in Quebec is always a dual-natured thing. The cold off the river, the slowly increasing warmth from the sky, the whisper of new growth, springing up between the cracks in the pavement. Between the centuries-old cobblestone blocks, buried under stubborn slush. The promise of hope, of something new and bright and warm, despite the lingering bite of winter.

 _Mathieu_ is still a name that’s cold on his tongue, that blues his lips as its exhaled out into the air. But his cheeks feel warm with the newly emerged sun, and the terror of a yawning existence that he can’t remember, that he can’t make sense of, doesn’t seem quite as scary as it once did.

Hope.

\--

In the middle of May, a few weeks after he meets Mrs. Bonnefoy, Francis comes to visit him.

He smiles, gives Mathieu a hug, chastises him gently for not telling the truth at the party, half a year ago, and lightly brushes away the tears gathering on Mathieu’s lashes.

 _Petit frère,_ he says, in a tone that just makes Mathieu cry harder.

The next week Angel comes with him, and she hugs him tightly, and jabbers in his ear, and speaks so fast he can’t understand her through her accent, but it’s okay, because she’s here. She’s here and she _missed_ him. She missed him like he missed her.

The following week when they visit, she stomps her foot when Francis says that Mathieu can’t come with them yet, and sticks her tongue out at one of the group homecaretakers who is hovering nearby nervously. Then she pulls one of her red ribbons out of her hair and ties it around Mathieu’s wrist.

“ _Une promesse,”_ she says seriously, before leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek.

The first week in June, Mrs. Bonnefoy comes back, heels clacking against the hardwood floor, expression displeased.

“I can’t believe you’re still here,” she says crossly, “This took far too long.”

“The process is supposed to take a few years,” murmurs the caretaker who let her in, before promptly fleeing under the force of Mrs. Bonnefoy’s glare.

“In any case, it’s over with now,” she says, turning back to face Mathieu, “Are you ready to go home?”

_Home._

The word home to _Mathieu,_ that name pulled out of a winter storm, brings up distant memories of Quebec. Old and ageless. Cold and unyielding. The snow and the river and the people; tenacious, unfriendly, and fiercely proud. Quebec City used to be his home, before whatever happened to him happened, before he became part of the snow.

But it’s not his home anymore. And he’s tired of being haunted by memories of it. He’s tired of being trapped by the winter inside his soul. He’s tired of being lonely, of being invisible, of being forgotten. He wants to make a new home. In California. With people who miss him when they don’t see him.

 “ _Ouais,”_ is what he whispers, and then, much to her exasperation, he starts to cry again.

\--

Angelique said they were living in a fairytale.

It was endearing and cute to hear her talk. To hear her tell the story. But it always seemed like there were details she must be glossing over. Things she must not be saying. Because who gets off a plane for a vacation and adopts a child? It doesn’t happen in real life. It doesn’t happen to people, not really. Future-seeing ex-girlfriends or not.

And then it happens to him, and he doesn’t know what to think.

Because it feels _right._ They only had one conversation, met once, but them coming back for him, adopting him, felt _right._ Just like they were in a fairytale.

Angel, his new sister, smiles at him from where she’s sitting on Francis’s carpet, a furtive grin. She leans forward towards him, like she has a secret.

“I could see it you know,” she whispers, “The ice on your fingers.”

She grins wider at the shocked expression on Mathieu’s face and spreads her hands wide.

“A fairytale,” she breathes out, and her skin _ripples,_ patterns of blue green spiderwebbing across her skin. Shimmering _scales_ that appear up her legs and along her fingers.As blue as the ocean. She laughs, twirling in a circle and dancing with her arms still raised. Water flies out of a nearby glass of water, and forms two perfect orbs, which hover over her hands.

He watches her, stunned into silence, before directing his gaze down to his own hands. It’s June, so it’s hard, but he can call frost to his fingers, still. Can slowly incase them into ice. He’s never really tried to do it purposefully, but he stares now, as ice creeps up his hands, as snowflakes drop from his spread fingers to melt on the carpet.

“Angel?” he asks quietly, slowly curling his hands into fists, “What are we?”

“A girl made of the ocean,” she says firmly, pointing at herself. Then, bounding forward to jab her finger into his chest, “And a lost child of snow.”

His breath catches in his throat, and he closes his eyes for a moment.

“Did…did Jeanne call me that?”

“How do you think Francis’s Maman knew where to find you?” says Angelique, smiling. Then she leans down, still grinning wide, still shimmering blue, and presses their foreheads together.

“A fairytale, Mathieu,” she breathes, “We are children of myths and stories, and we deserve our happy ending.”

 

\--

It’s August.

_Summer._

The sun is blazing and the sky is clear. There is no trace of winter in the air. Everything is dry, and hot. The bright blue above holds no trace of the blue of frozen fingers and frostbitten lips. It’s the blue of the ocean, the blue of a warm paradise, of summer.

Mathieu has never felt so awake in his life.

They’re driving through California, Francis in the front and he and Angelique in the backseat. His brother and his sister. _Family._

There’s a rented van following them with some of their luggage and belongings. Everything else has already been moved into the house. Their new house. In a new, small town in California.

“Small, but cute. And lovely people,” Francis had said, “And such a beautiful forest beside it.”

_Home._

He presses his face against the window.

 _Mathieu_ is a boy who was from Quebec, Canada. Who became something other than a boy when he was eleven years old, and lost his very existence to the snows of winter. His hazy memories are sad, and jumbled. He is made of snow and is consumed by it; by the winter he was lost to. He has little presence, because he doesn’t exist anymore.

He does not think that _Mathieu_ is the same boy who was found in that tree.

“You know, English-speakers won’t pronounce your name right,” says Francis conversationally, a teasing smirk on his face. “They’ll pronounce it _Matthew,_ with that ‘th’ sound English likes so much. You’ll have to be patient with the Americans, I’m afraid.”

He blinks.

 _Mathieu_ is winter, is old Quebec, is an empty church, is wandering cobblestone streets with wind freezing your bones, is being lost and lonely and cold. _Mathieu_ is a boy who went missing a long, long time ago.

 _Matthew_ …feels warm.

“That’s alright,” he says, face turned towards the window and lips curved into a gentle smile. “Matthew is okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canada was the most requested character! sorry for taking so long to get to him!  
> there were also two additional people who requested Matthew and Alfred's friendship specifically. ...That chapter was supposed to be out July 4th. let me start that now.  
> actually no, I'm going to finish that nyotalia bad blood oneshot first. and then my young avengers fic. but THEN. I will start next chapter. 
> 
> Do you guys want the french translations? I did them myself so they probs shitty. I was gonna include them in this note for sure but then it became late at night and also I finished this chapter on a glass of moscato so I'm exhausted and mildly intoxicated. but I'll put translations up tomorrow, probably. someone should probably remind me.


	16. Matthias (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, it's been awhile.  
> But in my defense, I've been writing a lot. I think I've posted like 30 stories since the last time I updated this? Six of them were for hetalia, if you want to check them out.  
> Anyways I've been wanting to get to this for awhile. This may be my fave pairing in the whole fic.

When you were a kid, your dad used to scold you for being unobservant, and inattentive, and _spacey._

You don’t think you were an unobservant child. You just…got distracted by things a lot. Noticed stuff. Noticed things like a bird you didn’t know the name of flapping through the sky or a funny stain on the carpet or the lady at the store having a new wig and wondering if you were supposed to notice it was a wig and the wind sounding like a dragon when it was whooshing and the smell of someone doing some illegal firepitting carried over on the breeze and-

And a lot of things. You noticed a lot of different little things before you realized your dad was talking to you. Before you realized that you were supposed to be listening. Responding. Paying attention. _Whoops._

Unobservant might not be the right word, but inattentive and spacey aren’t exactly far off the mark.

And sometimes you’d get so caught up _noticing_ something, you’d get fixated on it, and nothing short of a crowbar could pry your attention away. It drove your dad absolutely bonkers, the way you’d spend an hour watching a robin make a nest but couldn’t pay attention to a spoken conversation for more than thirty seconds. _‘Why can’t you focus like that when I’m talking to you? Or when your teachers are talking to you? Or when_ anyone’s _talking to you?’_

It’s not as bad now as it was when you were a kid. You feel like you’ve mostly got a handle on things, and don’t float out to space on some random thought _nearly_ as often. At least, your dad doesn’t bug you about it as much anymore. Or maybe that’s just because you’re seventeen, and should, reasonably, be able to stay concentrated on a single conversation for at least a minute without your dad bugging you about it. Which you can! Most of the time. If you are reasonably interested in what the conversation is about. You can focus singularly on someone, give them your undivided attention, and become absolutely enraptured and fixated on what they’re saying. Captivated. If you’re really interested in them, and what they’re talking about. If that’s the case, you could sit and listen for _hours._

“Pay attention to what I’m saying, idiot,” says Niels, flicking you on the cheek, “Stop staring.”

You blink. Your elbow is resting on the table and your chin is resting on your fist and you think you may have been in this position for about ten minutes. Just staring across the table. Not listening. At _all._

The problem, or one of them, is that sometimes what people are saying isn’t as interesting as other things about them. Say, Niels for instance! Sometimes you stop paying attention to what he’s saying because you get super interested in like, his eyes. The flat, blue-purple shade. The pupil and the iris blending together into something dark and bottomless. You’ve never met another person with this eye colour before. They’re kind of easy to get lost in.  

Niels is sitting across from you, at the public library. He looks unimpressed, as usual. And displeased to be here, possibly displeased at the entire inconvenience of existence. He certainly looks displeased with _you._

Your eyes catch on the glint of gold on the left side of his hair, the little cross-shaped hairclip that holds his hair away from his face, and you have to fight back a smile. Just because he _looks_ displeased doesn’t mean that he actually _is._

“Sorry, sorry,” you say, waving your hands apologetically, “I’m listening. I mean, I wasn’t, but I am now. What are we talking about again?”

Niels continues to look unimpressed. You give up and let your smile spill across your face.

“Exams start next week,” Niels says, eyes narrowing a bit, “If you don’t want to spend summer in school, you really need to start staring at textbooks instead of at me.”

You think you might blush a little. It certainly feels like your cheeks may have gone a little red. This is embarrassing. You’re embarrassed now.

“History exam is first,” Niels continues on blithely, “Just memorize the dates and you can bullshit the rest. Teachers are most impressed if you can remember the details they expect you to forget.”

“I’m better at remembering cause and significance then dates,” you say, “What caused this battle and what the outcome was, you know.”

“That’s more information to remember,” Niels replies, “So if that’s what you want to go for, you need to actually pay attention. And study.”

Well, there’s no arguing that point. He’s right. You pout a little anyways. He remains unaffected, as expected.

Or does he? You think you might see a flicker of a smile. A little lift of his mouth, a light in his eyes that disrupts the usual disaffected glare. If he were really bothered, his tone would be shorter. He’d treat you to more one word replies, less talking and more dead-eyed stares. So, no. He’s not as irritated as he’s making himself out to be. He doesn’t mind sitting here in the library with you, studying. And he doesn’t mind you staring. Or he’s used to it, at the very least.

You’ve been noticing Niels for a long time. Nearly since you first met him, almost ten years ago. Both of you nine years old. Him and his brother, newly arrived in the town by mysterious means. He hadn’t spoken much English then, and had come across as very shy. But your dad had taken you to see him anyways. He’d said it was mostly to visit your cousin Berwald; to see how he was handling the sudden and unexpected responsibility. But your dad was campaigning for mayor for the first time, and you didn’t think about it then, but now you’re pretty sure he thought it would boost his standings if his son was able to befriend the quiet displaced children, who nobody seemed to be able to get to talk. He certainly stressed to you, several times, the importance of making a good impression, and being as friendly and _attentive_ as you could be.

You remember going over in your head, again and again, what you were going to say. Having a script helped you stay focused. If there were things you _had_ to say, things you _knew_ you had to say, it helped stop you from getting distracted. Reciting rehearsed phrases instead of relying on your own, easily straying thoughts. You didn’t want to let your dad down.

You remember, vaguely, your dad talking with Berwald once you’d arrived. You don’t think Tino was there. You know Emil wasn’t. You remember that there was a chill in the air, even though it was summer. And you remember feeling distinctly unwelcome, between Berwald’s customary terrifying expression and the silent, unresponsive boy at his side.

The first thing you noticed about Niels, is that he doesn’t like to be noticed.

You remember _that_ clearly. The way he was standing, sort of…sideways. So that you were looking more at the point of his shoulder than his face. And his head turned, so that you could only catch his cheek instead of his eyes. Standing not exactly beside Berwald, and not behind him either, but in a sort of middle section that allowed him to both be dwarfed by the size of the man and hidden slightly by his shadow.

He was clearly trying very hard not to be noticed, which struck you as silly, seeing as you and your dad were only there to meet him. And it was how hard he was trying not to be noticed, not to be involved, not to be acknowledged, that pulled your eyes towards him, and kept them there. He was so quiet, so still. Nothing like the people you had grown up with.

Even now, it’s much of the same. Most of the people in your town are big. Full of big smiles and big voices and big hand movements and full of motion and bright like the constant, beaming sunlight. Real Californians, of the rural kind. Niels is much more…chilled. He is quiet, and controlled in his motion, and temperate in his movements, and shadowed, hooded like his eyes always are. Being in the town all these years haven’t changed that about him. You noticed it then, and you notice it now.

He’s quiet, as you take notes from the textbook. He’s highlighted all of the relevant information for you, so that you don’t have to slough through walls of text and inevitably fall asleep or get distracted by something else. Niels says it helps him study, to extract the pertinent information, to keep it as concise as possible, so it’s not a huge inconvenience, to help you out like this. He studies his own material as you study over what he’s already done. He has a chemistry exam after the history one, a course you’re not taking. Dani’s taking it though, and Dani’s _good_ at chemistry, notorious in the way he can show up to half the classes in a semester, and sleep through the other half, and still get straight As. You’re sure it would be more productive for Niels to study with him then to study with you.

But he’s here anyways, and that’s important.

In the years you’ve known him, you’ve come to realize that it is very much what Niels _doesn't_ say that’s important. If you pay attention only to what he says, he’d come across as the meanest, most standoffish, sarcastic person in the hemisphere. It’s his silences that are important. His heavy, weighted glances.

The first thing you noticed about Niels was that he doesn’t like to be noticed. The second thing you noticed about Niels is that he doesn’t like to be noticed noticing others.

His eyes are always half-closed and hooded. The direction of his pupils masked beneath his long eyelashes and the darkness of his eyes. Niels always looks like he’s utterly bored and disinterested by everything around him. It matches the way he doesn’t want to be seen. Like he wants to be distant from the world completely.

You don’t remember when you noticed that sometimes, Niels slipped, and revealed that there were things in your boring, material world that he actually cared about. But you remember that it was Emil he was staring at, watching closely.

Where were you? You can’t remember, exactly. You and Niels didn’t bump into each other a lot when you were younger. He was either cooped up in Berwald’s house or out in the forest with Arthur and Dani. And Kiku. Back then they ran around with Kiku and his siblings out there as well. But he rarely came into town. He liked people even less back then than he does now.

So you don’t remember exactly when or where you first noticed. Only that you did. That one day you saw him watching his brother, with such close, single-minded attention that it was both endearing and unnerving. It was sort of like the way you get, when you’re fixated on something. Except while sometimes his gaze was central, direct and unwavering, most of the times it was out of the corner of his eye. Like he didn’t want anyone to notice him noticing. His face would be turned towards something else, a book, or Arthur, or something undisclosed in the distance. But beneath those long eyelashes, his gaze would consistently turn back towards his brother, and stay there, and watch.  

That was when you realized that, no, Niels wasn’t a robot. Or mysteriously born without emotions or a soul. You don’t remember how old you were, maybe still nine, maybe ten by then, but you remember being weirdly pleased that you’d noticed. That you, mr. unobservant, attention always pulled seven hundred different ways, had paid attention to something long enough, had looked at someone closely enough, that you’d figured something so obviously _secret_ out.

On a completely unrelated note, the third thing you noticed about Niels was how long his eyelashes were.

You look up and notice them now, long and dark and brushing against his skin as he writes and rewrites formulas into his notebook. The hair on the right side of his head is tucked behind his ear, a few strands displacing and falling across his face, only to be swept back again by a quick movement of his hand. The cross-shaped hairclip on the left side of his head holds all the hair there firmly in place, like it’s done consistently for the past two years. It was a good gift. You’re proud of it. You get squishy feelings in your stomach everytime you see it. The hair clip that Niels never takes off. The gift you gave him for his fifteenth birthday, when he was still barely giving you the time of day. You haven’t been able to top it since, which frustrates you to no end. This May was no exception. You got him a _scarf._ A scarf! The lamest gift ever. You live in California, and Niels is nowhere near hipster enough to just _wear_ a scarf.

Though he did. Wear it. A few times around. Looped about his neck loosely, casually, like it didn’t send your heartbeat thundering everytime you saw him wearing it.

It’s nearly summer though, so right now he doesn’t have it with him. Just the hairclip. Like he always does. You are so in love with that hairclip.

Proud. You mean you are so _proud_ of that hairclip. Of the gift that you got him! Right.

Haha, who are you kidding? You’ve probably been in love with Niels since you met him. Or, maybe since you first saw him watching Emil. Or maybe that first time you saw him actually willfully spending time and interacting with others. Him and Emil and Arthur and Dani and Dani’s little brother stumbling out of the forest. Arthur and Dani laughing and Emil hiding his smile in Dani’s pant leg and Dani’s little brother up on Arthur’s shoulders.

They had been in their own world, back then. Most people in your grade thought Dani and Arthur were super weird and Niels was scary and unfriendly. And when Kiku and his siblings appeared and started school they were awkward and strange and had thick accents and people thought they were weird too. And all of them clumped together in their weirdness. Where they ran around the forest and came to school with dirty knees and dirty elbows and flowers and grass poking out of everywhere.

You had wanted to talk to Niels back then, but there was so much _distance_ it seemed impossible. Maybe you weren’t in love with him then, but you definitely had some sort of crush. Maybe it was just a friend crush. Maybe it was a curiosity crush. But it didn’t matter, because your friends teased you when they caught you looking and everyone at school thought they were weird and there was that _distance._

You were working up your courage though! Time passed and you all got older and Feliciano did it first, broke through that distance by making friends with Kiku and dragging Ludwig along with him, and it opened up all sorts of possibilities. The bubble of weirdness wasn’t impenetrable. If _Feliciano_ could get past it, there’s no way you couldn’t! You just had to, you know, _try._

Then Dani’s parents and brother died, and the distance widened again, this time, with Kiku and his family on the other side of it. Less of a distance, and more of an impassable, bottomless, void.

“You’re gone again,” Niels reaches across the table and taps you on the nose with his pen, “If you’re not going to work, I’m going home.”

“I finished everything in this chapter,” you say, pulling your attention away from the past, “I think that deserves a break.”

“Exams are next week.”

“Yeah, but I think I’m done,” you admit. Your mind is a million miles away. “Can we call it a day? Let’s go for a walk. It’s so nice out!”

“It’s nice out because it’s June,” Niels deadpans, “Which, coincidentally, is the month that exams are in.”

“They don’t start for a week! Six days is a long time,” you argue, “C’mon Niels, please? _Please._ Please!”

You see his expression flicker. The impassive look gives way to something faintly amused. It’s very slight, and you can only tell by the way the area around his eyes relaxes a little. He makes his mouth tighten in irritation, but you know that’s fake. He’s not _really_ irritated. If he was, his entire expression would have tightened, and he would have turned away a little, so that you were getting his shoulder instead of his face. But he’s still facing you dead on, so you know you haven’t aggravated him significantly. Yet.

“Alright, whatever you say, but don’t call me if you’re up cramming the night before,” Niels says, giving in. You beam as he begins to pack away his books, looking up at you occasionally from under his eyelashes.

It _is_ a nice day. That’s confirmed when you exit the library and step out into the daylight. June’s almost over, summer’s sneaking up on you, and the sun is blazing. You’re in a tshirt and shorts, and Niels is in jeans and a tshirt, with a hoodie tied around his waist. Even in the sun, his skin looks pale, almost translucent, with purple and blue veins standing out on his arms and the side of his neck. He’s squinting against the sun, frowning a little. He’s not a huge fan of hot, sunny days, which is both unfortunate and hilarious, considering you live in California. You wonder if you should have gotten him a hat for his birthday. Or a hat and sunglasses combination. Maybe he’d appreciate them, but at the same time, you just can’t imagine Niels in a ball cap and a pair of raybanz.

“Can we walk down to the corner store? I’ll buy us some smoothies,” you say. Niels glances at you out the corner of his eye, but doesn’t say anything. You grin.

When you were younger, your dad used to tell you to respect silences. That you didn’t _need_ to fill gaps in conversation with mindless chatter and random exclamations. Because _that_ had also been a bad habit of yours. Randomly shouting out whenever a silence dragged on for too long, because you just couldn’t _take_ it.

But with Niels, silence is important. He doesn’t say much, he doesn’t talk a lot. And even when he does talk, a lot of the time he doesn’t say what he means, or he says what he means but not what he’s trying to say in that instant. Silences are important with Niels, because if you don’t pay attention to what he’s saying when he’s not talking, you could misunderstand him _completely._

You _could_ ask him, ‘Is it too hot? Are you mad that we’re not studying? Do you want to get smoothies, or no?’

But instead you just read his answers in the way he keeps pace with you, doesn’t meander behind, or forge ahead without looking back. The way he lets you brush your shoulders together as you walk, and doesn’t glare at you. The way, every so often, he’ll glance at you out of the corner of his eye, similar to the way you used to see him notice Emil while trying not to be noticed noticing Emil. It’s hard to hide your smile when you see him doing that. It’s how you know he doesn’t mind spending time with you.

It’s a Monday afternoon, and the town’s moderately busy. School let out a few hours ago, so you see some elementary and middle school aged kids around. You didn’t really have class today. This whole week’s pretty much optional. Your teachers will be in their rooms at the normal class times to answer questions, but they’re not teaching anything new. You showed up for second and third period and spent the rest of the day loitering in the courtyard. It’s kind of surprising that Niels was there, actually. You didn’t see hide or hair of Dani or Arthur all day after all, and even now, the three of them are sort of a singular unit.

That reminds you of the fourth thing you had noticed about Niels. The most recent, too. In your first year of highschool. When Arthur was in the middle of his absolute crazy pants phase. You noticed that, while Niels’s preferred mode of existence was to exist with as little presence as possible, certain things could inspire him to do everything in his power to draw attention to himself, and to make his presence as visible and imposing as he was capable of.

At that time, Arthur had been getting picked on like crazy for how weird he’d been acting for the past few months. He’d been super aggressive and confrontational for awhile, and even you’d been nervous to go near him. And then he just…stopped. Got quiet and withdrawn and stayed away from everyone instead of everyone staying away from him. He had even stayed away from Dani and Niels for a bit, and _that_ had been weird to see. Weirdly sad, actually.

But then they were friends again or stopped fighting or whatever and Niels and Dani turned into a two-man Arthur defence squad. With Dani, it was expected. He and Arthur had been inseparable for years, and close enough that people had run out of immature gay jokes to make about them by the time you all got to highschool. But Niels, despite all the time he spent with them, had always maintained that outward display of aloofness. Had always seemed like he barely tolerated Dani and Arthur. You couldn’t read him back then like you can now. To you, and to everyone else, it seemed like he was hanging out with Dani and Arthur begrudgingly.

But then he started visibly and actively confronting people who were either talking shit about Arthur, or harassing him. You weren’t the only one who did a doubletake the first time Niels got up in someone’s face. The first time he backed someone up against a wall and told them in no uncertain words to back off or face the consequences. He went from hiding himself to making his presence as clear and known as possible. He faced everyone dead on and dared them to approach, to look at Arthur crossways, to _speak._

Dani was intimidating in his own way. There was an air of unpredictability and instability about him after his family died, and some of your more unkind peers suspected he’d actually snapped completely, and was just hiding it. But he wasn’t as good as Niels at creating fear with just a _look._ Niels had spent so many years turned away that when he started staring people in the eye, they just backpedalled and ran.

Funny enough, that was when you finally worked up the courage to talk to him.

The corner store’s pretty dinky. It used to be attached to a gas station, but then the gas station closed down, so now it’s just a tiny store in a flat lot selling expired candy and bags of chips and overpriced water bottles. But the smoothie machine in the back of the store is actually pretty good, even though it only has two flavours.

The store isn’t air conditioned, and you see Niels brush strands of damp hair off his forehead as you pour two blue raspberries. His eyes are a little hooded, but not in irritation or boredom. It’s the half-closed, lazy look of a content, sun-warmed cat. And you can tell it’s that one, because he’s staring right at you. Maybe he thinks you don’t see it, because you’re busy fiddling a lid onto the flimsy plastic cup. But you can, you can totally see him staring.

You pick up the two cups and he looks away immediately. Trying to not be noticed noticing. He’s not blushing, but you are.

You think it’s actually cooler outside then it was in the store. There’s a breeze blowing when you exit, and together with the smoothie, you don’t feel as much like you’re being fried on the sidewalk. You let yourself move a little closer to Niels as you walk, not just bumping against him, but pressing to his side.

He permits it. For a little bit. You feel the skin of his arm against yours, still strangely cool, down the sidewalk and around the corner. But then he steps away, puts about half a foot of space between you.

The record for prolonged skin-to-skin contact is a full minute, when you were walking home together just before spring break. You haven’t gotten there again since. Which, okay, you know Niels likes his personal space. You also know that there are times where he’s okay with you moving a bit closer. And there are times where he doesn’t mind you brushing your hand against his, or resting your head on his shoulder while you sit beside each other.

But there are also times where he prefers to have a clear barrier of space between you, and you have to respect those times, even as you try not to pout.

You work against your urge to say something to fill the silence. It’s nice, just walking, the two of you. You don’t want to ruin it with your customary inane prattle. Not that he’d mind, necessarily, but it’s nice to just walk without talking. It’s why you like walking in the first place. Walking is easy. It’s not like sitting someplace, where you’re expected to make conversation, and pay close attention, and be focused on each other. You can ramble if you want and it’s not awkward if he doesn’t reply, because you’re walking and not sitting across from each other. And you can do the opposite and space out silently and stare at the sky or at the trees or at a bird or at anything and everything. And Niels might smirk a little when he sees you’ve drifted off entirely but he won’t tease or flick you or tell you to come back to earth because when you’re walking it’s okay. You love walking with Niels.

Even though he’s moved away a little, Niels still looks like he’s enjoying walking with you. He’s still relaxed, still giving you those little looks out of the corner of his eye. The heat doesn’t seem to be bothering him too much, though you can see where the ends of his hair are sticking to the back of his neck. Both his hands are wrapped around the smoothie cup, and his lips are already turning a little blue with the colouring.

He turns towards you then, a flat look. Not a displeased one, necessarily, but a- oh. You’re staring. He’s telling you that you’ve been staring at him again, you weirdo, stop that.

You chuckle a little awkwardly, and look down, sheepish. The back of your neck is burning, and it’s not from the sun.

Niels is still looking at you though, and there’s purpose to it now. You look up and stare at him, a questioning expressing. He tilts his head a little, and raises an eyebrow. He wants to know something. He looks forward, then back towards you, then forwards again.

Ah, right. He wants to know where you want to walk to now.

Both of you have your backpacks on, with a full year’s worth of coursework. A long walk’s probably not in the forecast today. So not down to the lake, even though it’s a perfect day to sit down there and dip your feet in the water. That’s where you usually walk to, when you’re not walking home from school. The lake’s close to your house, and not too far off from Niels’s. Sometimes you walk other places. Sometimes you just walk around.

You go for walks together, not like, _a lot._ But frequently-ish. Niels usually hitches a ride home from school with Dani or if Dani has work walks home with Arthur. But sometimes Arthur goes off with Kiku or Alfred or some other place and Niels walks home without him. And after you’d started talking to Niels and actually getting responses, or somewhat non-homicidal looks, you’d somehow managed to convince him to walk home with you, since you lived in the same direction. And then time passed and he didn’t mind your company as much as he pretended to and you started walking other places.

Some of your friends tease you mercilessly about it. ‘oh hey, where you going Matthias? Off for a walk with _Niels?_ Winkwinkwink’. It’s really, really embarrassing the way everyone, _everyone_ knows you have a gigantic crush on Niels. You swear you don’t make it that obvious! You are the master of subtlety, _honest._

Niels is still staring at you. He’s got a genuine look of impatience this time, which you can tell because the area between his eyebrows is just a little scrunched. Oh, wait. Place to walk to! Right.

“We can walk to…” you flounder. Where can you walk to? Through the town? You could, but Niels will get grumpy very quickly if you end up bumping into a lot of people saying ‘afternoon!’ and ‘how are you boys doing today?’ as you’re walking. Which, it being a small tiny town in the middle of nowhere where nothing happens and everybody knows everybody, is very likely. And it’s such a _nice_ day. In another half hour, the streets will probably be legitimately crowded.

“We can walk to…” you grapple for an idea. You _really_ don’t want to return to the library and study, seriously, you’re done studying for the day. You’re tired and your brain is fried and also you want to keep pretending you’ve made it to summer and school doesn’t exist and more importantly you want to keep spending time with Niels without a mountain of textbooks between you.

“To the…ice cream parlour?”

 _The ice cream parlour._ It’s one of your favourite places in town. It’s air-conditioned and has soft cushioned booths and non-obnoxious wallpaper and it’s just all around nice. It’s run by the eldest Braginski sister, who is a little odd but is also kind and not particularly nosy. Everyone knows that the best place to run to when skipping class is the ice cream parlour, because Katyusha won’t snitch. Also, and probably most importantly, the ice cream is great! The parlour has a lot of flavors. And having a lot of flavors is really, really rare in this middle-of-nowhere town. The ice cream parlour is also close to where you are now. Probably a five minute walk. And, you need to mention again, _air-conditioned._

Niels stiffens.

Unfortunately, while the ice cream parlor is the _logical_ closest place, and coolest place, and _nicest_ place, it is also has some connotations. Mainly that you think, and have always thought, that it is a perfect place for a date! It’s always so nice and sometimes the front area is loud because children come in but the booths at the back are always quiet and soft. It is a _perfect_ date place. And you may have asked Niels out to the ice cream parlour, and used the ‘d’ word, just so there were no mixed messages, and he may have said no, and you may have asked him again on five separate occasions over the past year and a half.

When you were a kid, people used to tell you that you were too pushy. When Berwald used to babysit you, it was all he’d ever say. ‘Stop being so pushy, stop being so loud and demanding’. One of your friends, when you were fighting in grade school, had stuck up their nose and said that no one liked you because you were so loud and bossy and _pushy._ After inattentive and spacey, it seems like pushy is the entire town’s favourite word to describe you.

You try not to be so pushy anymore. You try! And you’re _not_ bossy. And you are definitely not _demanding._

So why do you keep asking Niels out if he keeps saying no?

The first time you asked him out, he hesitated. And Niels doesn’t _do_ that. He doesn’t. If he doesn’t want to do something, he doesn’t want to do something. He’s not generally wishy-washy. If he doesn’t like you, he doesn’t like you. If he likes you you’ll know because he’ll spend time with you and look at you from under his eyelashes. If he was horrified or upset or pissed or completely disinterested by you asking him out, you would have known. _Immediately._

But he’d _hesitated,_ and looked at you, and you’d seen actual emotions do things on his face, before he’d stiffened and looked away and said no.

Here’s the thing. Everyone knows you have a gigantic crush on Niels, including Niels. If there was any doubt before, it all flew out the window once you straight up asked him out on a date. From that moment on, it would have made sense for him to avoid you. You were barely friends at that point anyways, still in that tentative area where you didn’t know him super well yet and still said things that pissed him off or sent him into grumpy-silent-sulk mode all the time. So asking him out should have been the final straw that caused him to send you packing.

But it wasn’t. You asked him out, he’d hesitated, done complicated things with his face before saying no, you’d started to slink away, and he’d called out and reminded you to not be late tomorrow when you met him at the school sign to walk home together.

Past Matthias had been confused as heck.

Niels does not subject himself to things he doesn’t want to be subjected to. He’s very clear about what he dislikes. And he’s less clear about what he likes, but he never sticks around or submits himself to anything he’s against. You were confused back then, but you’d gradually come to the conclusion that Niels _does_ like you, in the ‘like like’ way, but that for some reason, he’s either afraid or unwilling to date you. You just don’t know _why._

You’ve asked him six times over the past two years. The first time was the summer you were fifteen, after he’d been wearing your hairclip for awhile, and the sixth time was around Easter this year, just before you left to visit family in Denmark. Today makes seven.

And Niels is looking at you the way he always does. Except _more._ He’s so good at controlling his face and hiding what he’s thinking, but you can see him wrestling with something in his head. The way the skin around his eyes is tight, the way his mouth is moving, like he’s just avoiding biting at his lip. But he doesn’t look angry, or annoyed, he looks…he looks…

“No,” Niels says, finally, and your heart sinks, “No, I think I’ll just go home.”

God. Dammit. “Okay,” you say, trying to hide how crestfallen you are. You’re used to this! It’s no big deal. “Okay, yeah sure, studying to do, things to…to…yeah, okay.”

Niels is not an indecisive person. He is also not one to lie down and take things he doesn’t like. If he wanted you to stop asking, he would tell you, plainly. If he really, really didn’t want to go on a date with you, if he didn’t reciprocate your feelings just a little, he wouldn’t look the way he looks whenever you ask him out.

And the looks have just gotten worse, over the years. You couldn’t read him as well when you were fifteen, but you’re pretty sure the look then was more bafflement than anything, and then wary hesitation. Since then, it’s gotten more and more hesitant, more and more uncertain. More and more conflicted.

You’re _positive_ that Niels wants to go on a date with you. There’s a reason he’s saying no, and you just wish you knew what it was.

You _know_ he likes you. You _know_ it.

Niels’s gaze is on the ground. You turn yours away to the side. Only to jump back towards him as you see him look up at you from the corner of his eye.

“…walk me?” he asks, barely any inflection in his tone. The flat voice he uses when he’s trying not to care. The emotionless tone that’s so forcibly emotionless that it’s really obvious how hard he’s trying to act emotionless, when he is in fact feeling emotions. Oh, Niels.  

 _This_ is why you keep asking. It’s not really mixed messages, because you think you get it. He does probably like you, in _that_ way. And maybe he even wants to go on a date. But not yet. Not _yet._ You keep asking because not _yet_ isn’t not _ever._ Maybe you _are_ pushy and bossy but if there was ever anyone who would never let you get away with pushing or bossing them around it’s Niels. One day he might say ‘No, stop asking’ and that’ll be it. But that day’s not here yet.

And today, Niels wants you to walk home with him.

“Yeah,” you say, brightening. “Of course.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: long author's note ahead. 
> 
> First, how obnoxious is the long character listing when the fic appears in the archive? I was thinking of deleting all the character tags except for the black Magic Trio and Alfred and maybe Yao, and just putting an Ensemble Cast tag instead, and leaving the relationship tags. Anyone have opinions on that, for or against? 
> 
> Two, goddamn anime tsunderes. I had trouble with the last part. The way characters and romances happen in so many animes, it's a lot of, 'this character is saying no, but they secretly mean yes, just keep trying!' and that's so problematic. it was hard for me to explain that away. Matthias is right, Niels would probably say yes if he didn't have the huge 'im only half human' thing hanging over his head, but that's just in this fic. remember kids, in real life, if someone says no, they don't actually mean 'ask me five more times I'll say yes eventually'. 
> 
> Three, I need to say it again. I goddamn love dennor in this fic. I have an entire playlist dedicated to dennor in this fic. 
> 
> Four, I held off on posting this chapter for a bit because I didn't want to leave too much time between chp. 16 and chp. 17. chapter 17 is really long and it doesn't look like I'm close to ending it yet. so I'll try and get it out soon, but I make no promises, because it's long. 
> 
> Five, reminder to check my tumblr! My tag for this story is 'dinb', and my general fic tag is 'nat's fanfics'. If you're looking for updates on where I am in the writing process, check those tags. and if I haven't posted for awhile, check my fic tag to see if I've been distracted and am working on something else (which happens frequently). 
> 
> Six, I wish someone could read my body language as well as Matthias can read Niels. Somedays I really don't want to talk or maintain verbal communication. T_T 
> 
> Seven, this is the first DINB chapter I'm posting from England. <333 And now I'm going back to Canada for christmas lol.
> 
> Eight, also, do slap me or yell at me or politely correct me if I have done a poor job portraying an individual with undiagnosed ADD. 
> 
> Thanks again for everyone's continued support and interest in this story! ^_^


	17. Kiku (2004)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....  
>  this. this is a long-ass chapter. I. . .ugh.
> 
> warnings for references to past child abuse. and the entire chapter sort of deals with the mental and emotional repercussions of that abuse.

In Kiku’s memory, his father is always sad.

Not in any obvious way. Not in a way that could be interpreted as weakness. His father did not hang his head, and never wept. He always stood tall, and unwavering, and appeared as powerful as he could.

But still, Kiku remembers him as always being sad. A tangible sadness, which permeated the air. An atmospheric melancholy, which radiated out around him. Continually afflicted by some internal hurt that he could never conceal, despite how he might try to.

Kiku’s mother however, was unshakeable. He remembers her as always being completely composed, her emotions locked down. She was never anything but powerful, and proud, and she refused to let any misgivings, any sadness that his father felt, touch her.

She had seven tails, elegant and black tipped.

His father only had one.

Kiku doesn’t like to think about their deaths. The suddenness of it. The finality. Their existence, the three of them living together on the edge of the Honda tribe’s territory, had always been a tenuous one. His father tried to hide it from him, but his mother did not. The truth of the matter, that at any moment her tribe could decide to drive them away entirely, and leave them homeless. She never concealed that truth from Kiku, even as she refused to let the uncertainty of their fate affect her pride.

And still, when the moment came, they had all been unprepared. Kiku doesn’t like to think about it. Tries not to remember it, if he can. And still, he is unable to stop dwelling on the miracle of his own survival. And the result of it; a second tail.

His tails are black-tipped, like his mother’s. He thinks he looks more like her than he does his father. Or he hopes so, at least.

Even as a child, unaware of the wider ramifications of his parentage, or the reasoning behind their secluded existence, he knew it was better to follow his mother’s example than his father’s. To be proud, to hold head and tail high, to never let the jeering, the mocking, and the disrespect of others get to him. Alone, and isolated from the clans of Japan, he had no other choice.

And when reality came crashing down upon him. When his parents were killed and he was left alone, confronted by the shame of his own existence, living on his pride was all he could do to stop from falling into despair, and falling prey to all the petty spirits and youkai who were clamoring to see him fall.

_And where is the nameless fox going today?_

A grinning tanuki, up in the branches of a tree. Glinting teeth and shimmering, shifting form half-hidden among the folding leaves. Unabashed in its staring, in its contempt.

_It’s the cub- no, don’t look. The clans won’t be pleased if we acknowledge him._

A group of woodland spirits, tittering to themselves. They hurry past in a flurry of robes, flashes of blue and green and gray as they speed by, their gossiping voices echoing. So unabashedly pleased at the opportunity to slight a higher youkai without retribution. So delighted and gratified.

_No-parents, no-name. No-parents, no-name!_

A laughing trickster spirit of some sort. Intangible and invisible, a disembodied voice dancing in the air, mocking. Always mocking. What better pastime, what action more satisfying, then being free to derive and belittle one who should, by all purposes, be above you? One who should have your deference, your fealty, your respect?

But Kiku is nameless. He is banished. He is parentless. He garners no respect, no bows, no honour.

The youkai of Japan were relentless. He was unprotected and young and carried a triple shame on his head. His half-human father, his exiled mother, his own quarter-human blood. A fourth shame hung over his head like a brand- that the tribes had made a point to tell other Youkai to disregard him. They had let him live on, not executed him for his parents’ shame, but exacerbated the conditions of his exile. The entire island had been told that he was a shame on the kitsune tribes, that they would barely tolerate his presence, that they would not acknowledge him, and that all other reputable youkai should do the same.

The forests of Japan were small. And cold. His mother once told him it was because the dragons of Japan were gone. That it was their absence that made all the magic, all the Wild, feel so cold, unfriendly and unwarm and untogether. That was her excuse for how terrible being so completely isolated felt. She blamed it on the lack of dragons. Blamed it on the humans who killed them. The humans who were half-responsible for the birth of her chosen husband. Kiku’s mother, and her life of contradictions. And still, she was so unrelenting in holding head and tails high. In maintaining her pride.

Kiku never really believed in her assertions that the forests were cold because the dragons were gone.

And yet…there is something warm- something _warmer_ about this American forest.

He is been here a few years now, and Kiku truly feels as if there is something more welcoming, something less frigid then what was within the forests of Japan. Maybe it’s because it is far inland, away from any coast and cool sea breezes. Maybe it’s because of the mountain, once a volcano, centuries ago. Or maybe his mother was right, in this one instant, and the presence of a dragon _does_ add something to a forest. _Does_ add something to whichever pocket of Wild that the dragon watches over.

Yao- the dragon, Wang-san –is still as powerful and commanding and impossible and confusing as ever. He is kind where he should be aloof. He is stern where he should be demanding. He hides in his human form, when he should reign proud in his dragon form, and still manages to garner deference and respect from the youkai on the mountain and in the forest. It is baffling.

Yao is also impossibly patient with Kiku. Kiku, who has never managed to get over his utter distaste for Yao’s decision to masquerade as a human. Kiku, who is living off of Yao’s hospitality and under his protection, but has refused to conform to most of his rules and stipulations. Will not set foot in that laughable house. Will not engage in the revolting playacting that the halflings engage in- pretending and preparing to pretend to be humans. The only thing he allows is writing, and the learning of language. Kitsune know how to read and write human script. His mother and father had both been teaching him, before they died. Chinese characters and Japanese characters cross over and share shapes, and learning the writing system feels a bit like a last connection to home.

English, though. English is what Yao speaks to the Djinn, what the humans speak. What the halflings are learning to speak. The youkai in this forest also tend to speak it. Or think it, at least. Being surrounded by a language he doesn’t understand is jarring, and even further isolating. And it’s beyond irritating, to have the little half-tiger jabbering at him with words he doesn’t know. Kiku feels he has little choice but to learn it.

A fox as he is, with powers of mental communication, it is not hard for him to pick up a language everyone around him is speaking. Writing it is harder, reading even worse, but there’s something satisfying about the challenge of it. Sitting with Yao, tracing and copying characters and letters. Thinking of words and associating the things he sees and hears with the shapes on the paper.

It is possible, as well, that there is a part of him that enjoys sitting with Yao. That Kiku enjoys the time when the children have been put to bed, or are otherwise occupied, and he and the dragon are left to sit on the grass, and write and read together. Yao shouts and frets and mutters ruefully when he’s chasing the halflings around during the day, but in the evening, his tone quiets and levels into something soothing and old and wise. Kiku enjoys listening to it. He enjoys it very much.

But most of the time, Yao’s time is taken up almost entirely by the halflings. By the little tiger, the three little dragons, the bird girl and the elephant child. They are high maintenance and loud and half-human and demanding and juvenile and everything that annoys Kiku.

But they know nothing of hierarchies. Yao has made it so. They interact freely with the forest, protected by Yao’s guardianship of them. They laugh and play and have no words of derision for others, and have no words of derision cast upon them. So different from Japan. They would have been ruthlessly shunned, if not persecuted, in Japan. Human born, half-Wild abominations, at the very lowest tier of youkai society. It would have been a miracle if they survived past infancy, in Japan.

Here the forest and the Wild welcome them. They are neither shunned nor persecuted nor even spoken ill of. The trees and the wind and the endless grassy mountain fields welcome them. A territory warmed by a dragon, like his mother would speak of wistfully.

Even Kiku, raised with intimate knowledge of the youkai hierarchies, is no longer cold to the halflings. They have been together three years now, and while he has kept himself apart and aloof as best he can, so that they do not know him, he feels as if he’s come to know them well.

Linh and Tai are halflings but they are older than him, and he has learned that they know something of abandonment. Of isolation. Of being shunned, from their time before meeting Yao. They’ve seen a little of what the world can be, without a dragon’s protection to shield them from it, and they are both more cautious for the experience. They are not as mindlessly loud and carefree as the others, and Kiku has come to acknowledge that they are older than him, and though he is a kitsune and they are merely halflings, it is acceptable to treat them with respect.

Tai is smart and clever, and as much as it discomfits him, even Kiku can see the mastery in the house he constructed. And Linh is very frank, very stern. But when the younger ones are running wild, when they are playing and screaming and being loud, sometimes Linh will come sit by Kiku, just the two of them. She won’t say anything, and neither will he, but they won’t move from each other’s presence.

Kiku has never sat by someone before, just sat and enjoyed not being alone. Even in silence, the feeling of not being alone is a nearly overwhelming one.

The youngest are troublesome. They are hyper and they are loud. They are _so_ loud. Kiku can’t get over how loud they are. Yong Soo in particular is _so loud_. He is _so_ loud.

Xiang and Lei are the quietest out of the four of them. But it means nothing, in the long run. Lei is notorious for encouraging Mei and Yong Soo’s wild antics and standing passively by as they get in trouble. And Xiang, barely more than an infant, has mastered the ‘who, me?’ expression, and is terrifyingly capable of looking innocent and guileless after setting a whole section of field on fire. Mei is just a wild ball of destruction. Fire and laughter and endless questions. She follows Kiku everywhere and if she’s bothering him than eventually Xiang will come to bother him as well. And then Yong Soo will climb a tree and try to surprise attack him from above.

They used to be scared of him. Or, at least, wary of him. Knew better than to approach him, or try to rope him into their ridiculous games and rambunctious play. But that was in the past, and now they are all too willing to jump at him and grab at his fur and try to convince him to play with them. Kiku is not sure what’s changed. _He_ certainly hasn’t. He might not be as…contemptuous, as dismissive of them as he once was. But it doesn’t mean he shows them any kind of _affection._

He may, on occasion, let Xiang and Mei walk with him, even when his intention was to go alone. And he might let Lei nap against his side. And he might not snap at Yong Soo like he used to. Might catch him when he tumbles out of trees. Might bristle and move to defend him when he’s being chased by a particularly disgruntled woodland imp.

But that doesn’t mean anything. Not really.

He still prefers to spend his time alone. He still prefers to stay away from the little house, the little home Yao and his children have built. There are caves further up the mountain, quiet and isolated. They are cool, and ache with something deep and powerful. There are small, calm pools within them that he can dip his paws into cautiously. That he can sit by and stare into, matching gazes with his own reflection.

He likes to think he still looks more like his mother than he does his father. But he’s not sure anymore. He doesn’t remember their faces very well. It has been many years, and he was very young when they died.

He’s been here for three years.

Kiku has become used to America. Or, as used to as one can be. It is a large area, a sprawling, expansive forest and a significantly sized mountain. There are huge trees with long limbs and spreading, whispering leaves. There is tall grass and a wild mess of plants and shrubs and a small but beautiful burbling river with branching streams. Against all odds, the territory is an impossibly large, diverse, and untouched patch of Wild, a rare, and near-extinct thing.

However, it does not take much pushing of his mental powers for Kiku to feel the stain of the humans in the nearby town. The buzz of their minds, of their collective blindness, deafness, inability to see and connect with the world around them. It mars the idyllic setting of the forest and the mountain, however secluded and untouched they may otherwise seem.

And if he ventures too far into the forest he may come close enough to smell the tar of the human road, the smoke from the human vehicles. The pungent taste of their filth and their exhaust permeating the air. Proof of the undeniable fact that they are, in actuality, surrounded. For all the freedom of the mountain, for all the beauty and close cover of the forest. They are still rubbing against a human settlement, and surrounded on all sides by the human world. It sours everything; spoils it.

Even the dragon, for all his talk of wanting the halfling children to be able to live human lives as well as Wild ones, has avoided direct interaction with the humans. Is made uneasy by the proximity of the town. Of the existence of humans on the inner edge of the forest. Kiku feels somewhat gratified, in a way. He, unlike the djinn and the halfling children, never believed that living side by side with humans could be simple or manageable in any way. He wanted no part of it, and wanted to be exempted entirely from it when he agreed to make the journey to America. And for all purposes he’s been proved right. Aside from the djinn, there have been no attempts to communicate, to interact with the humans of the town. And Yao no longer encourages him to wear a human form. Why would he? All his assertions about learning to live among humans have been proved false.

But still, there is the djinn. More human than youkai, really. His own self-professed watered down bloodline makes his magic feeble at best. And still, Kiku can always feel as he comes up the mountain, an aura like a smouldering piece of firewood pushing at the edges of consciousness. Vaguely hot, the impression of lingering light and heat, a potential power that is no longer quite there. The smell of incense, of charcoal, trailing behind him like a ribbon. Faint some days, stronger others, but always present.

More often then not, Kiku chooses to remain absent on the days that the djinn visits.

He does not dislike him- Rajni. He does not dislike Rajni at all. He found Kiku, and brought him to a place where he has a chance to live, to do something other than die in shame before his life’s even begun.

But the days that Rajni visits Yao are ‘human’ days. Days when Yao urges the halflings to hide their Wild selves. To tuck in their claws, hide their fur and scales beneath human fabric, and to act. To fumble around with human cutlery, pencils. To bumble around the ridiculous house and try not to scratch or burn or electrocute anything. Kiku has never stuck around long enough to observe the proceedings, but he imagines it’s fairly painful to watch.

And for what? To go down to the town? To pretend to be humans and reveal themselves? Yao’s hesitancy shows his own doubt of that plan. The more time that passes, the more unlikely it seems that he’ll ever follow through with his vision of a dual life for the children. And so, why? Why invite the djinn over and play act? Why?

It is not that Kiku is feeling particularly disgruntled today. It is _not._ He may have been…looking forward to some time with Yao this afternoon. The dragon might have mentioned practicing with Kiku this week, with his powers of energy projection, forcefields and offensive energy bursts. Kitsune tools of battle that he’s never had the opportunity to hone or even truly acknowledge. Kiku might have been waiting all week for Yao to make time, and he might have been convinced that today would be the day. Before he sensed Rajni approaching, before he saw Tai, slowly, and with great concentration, tying a pair of human shoes onto Lei’s feet.

It was then Kiku realized that today would not be a day where he would train with Yao. Instead, it would be a day where he went off alone. A day he spent by himself. Not an unfamiliar day. In fact, one quite common to him.

And still, he can’t shake his disappointment.

He does not particularly want to go to the caves. Familiar and pleasant as he finds them. He does not want to spend the day in the darkness, with only the rippling pools and echoes to keep him company.

Not that he’s lonely, of course…but he does not wish to be alone.

And so, today Kiku drifts down towards the forest. The place that he is technically ‘not allowed’ to go to without being accompanied by the dragon. Without assurance that the sorcerers are not out, that there isn’t a human presence in the otherwise Wild-saturated wood. But Kiku- Kiku is _not_ one of Yao’s adopted children. He is not here to be raised and taught and tenderized into a passable human child. He is a kitsune, and he is only here until he grows another tail, however much longer that takes, and if he wants to go down to the forest, _he will go down to the forest._

The spectre of Yao’s disapproval hangs over him, the phantom smell of brimstone and dragon-anger, and Kiku’s head is a bit low, as he pads through the shade of the trees. He is as afraid of Yao as is proper, Yao being a dragon, but he would never admit to afraid of Yao being disappointed in him. An acknowledgement of how much the dragon’s approval means to him, is a weakness Kiku cannot allow himself to submit to.

The forest is quiet today. He’s not certain if he’s glad of being so alone with his own thoughts. He can sense the nymphs in the trees, and the animal spirits among the roots, but none of them speak to him. It’s not the smug, shameful silence he was subjected to in Japan, but it is quiet. A marked different to the way the forest behaves when Kiku comes down here accompanied by the children, or by Yao. They are nervous around him, wary, but not so quiet. Perhaps their silence now is out of respect for the youkai hierarchies that Yao so dismisses. In Japan, it would be unthinkably for common spirits to talk brazenly before an honourable kitsune.

So he should be gratified by the quiet. Or so he tells himself.

Even so, it is impossible for the forest to be entirely silent. The leaves still whisper, and a nearby brook babbles softly. Something chatters from the branches of a tree, and something else nearby answers its call. The hum of Wild energy, of liveliness and of life, is ceaseless, and Kiku feels warm with it. With or without Yao and the children, the forest is a warm and welcoming place.

Then he senses them.

An obtrusive, foreign presence at the edge of his consciousness. Jarring in the way they don’t fit neatly into the even, consistent feedback loop of the forest. It takes him only a few seconds to realize that he’s sensing humans. Humans in the forest.

Here, perhaps, is another reason for the quiet.

Yao would have known the humans were here before even coming down. He would have spoken to some nymphs, or extended his awareness far down enough that he could sense them, even from up on the mountain. He would have known they were here, and forbade everyone from coming down to the forest today.

 _Two humans_ , Kiku’s sense tells him, now that he’s close enough to smell them on the breeze, now that he’s already in the forest. He should leave now. He should turn tail and head back up the mountain. Now that he knows they’re here, he should _go._

But they feel so… _odd_.

Humans have a very distinct presence. They feel like all their man-made, unnatural human things. Cold and dirty and detached. Disconnected. Everything in the Wild is interwoven, from the loftiest kitsune to the lowliest wood imp. But humans are not part of that cycle, they have severed themselves from it. That is why they cannot See, or Hear. They are blind and indifferent, and are wrapped up in their gases and oils and hard, unalive things.

The humans he senses feel like all these things. They feel human. They feel cold and unnatural and smell like oil and the acrid human-made electricity.

But they also feel…connected.

Kiku’s certain he’s getting it wrong, that his perception is failing him, but it doesn’t seem like something that could be misinterpreted. It’s dulled and watered down and blocked up like a stuffy nose, but he feels them still. Tentatively a part of the ebb and flow of the forest’s Wild energy. Two humans.

He’s begun creeping forward unconsciously. Yao’s disapproval hangs down heavier still, and Kiku forces himself to ignore it. This is too strange. _Humans_ that feel as if they can touch the Wild. Certainly Yao would want him to investigate such a strange and unsettling thing?

As he moves closer to where he can sense them, Kiku begins to hear voices ringing out among the trees. Child voices, laughing.

Humans cannot see kitsune unless they want to be seen, but these humans seem unusual, so as an extra precaution, Kiku spins a glamour around himself. A self-taught ability; kitsune are deceivers and tricksters at heart, and learning how to cloak himself, to conceal and hide or deflect gazes away from himself, has always come naturally to him.

Safely concealed, Kiku moves towards the sound of the laughter. Towards the sounds of leaves and twigs crunched clumsily underfoot. Towards the scent of obtrusive human civilization, mixed in bizarrely with the scent of the Wild.

And then he sees them. Two human children, walking through the trees with laughter and smiles bright on their faces. Closer now, Kiku can detect the distinct differences between them. The one in front, with brown hair and a book in hand, smells like smoke and chalk. Something a little darker hovers around him, not quite touching him, but mixed into his aura all the same. The one behind him, with bright hair and bright eyes, smells like something close to the forest itself. Like he’s been wrapped up in the trees and grass and plants. His aura is very green, and very bright, and very warm. It mixes and tangles with the energies around him naturally, and Kiku can see the way the leaves turn towards him, the way the flowers shift to look at him, the way they do the sun. There are a few flower fairies trailing behind him, and a rabbit spirit of some sort sitting on his shoulder. It is the most unusual, jarring thing that Kiku has ever seen, made even worse when the child turns and _speaks_ to the rabbit spirit on his shoulder. He can _See._

And that, perhaps, explains why they feel the way they do. Connected despite their humanity. Are these the Sorcerers, then? They are very young, not as old as even Tai, Kiku doesn’t think. Perhaps only a bit older than Yong Soo. Are these humans really the reason Yao is hesitant to go down to the forest, some days? _These_ humans? Young and small and feeling relatively powerless?

The one in front says something, in English, and Kiku misses the meaning. It’s spoken to fast, not slow like Rajni speaks, and marred by a strange affliction to his tone. An accent?

The one behind him giggles a little, and the fairies circling him like a halo echo the sound. They’re fond of him- they _like_ him. Kiku can feel their affection in the air. It’s _boggling_. Regardless of their unusual auras, of their Sight, they’re still _humans._ And, probably, also Sorcerers. And Sorcerers are _dangerous._ That, at least, is something Yao and Rajni agree on, even if there is disagreement on the _level_ of danger.

Then the bright-haired boy, with the bright eyes and the bright aura, turns his face in Kiku’s direction. Kiku stiffens a moment, before remembering that he had the sense to spin a glamour around himself. Even so, he feels uneasy, exposed, as the boy’s eyes, such an unusually bright green, seem to fixate on the spot where he’s standing.

“Dani, look,” the boy breathes, slow enough for Kiku to understand the words, “A fox with two tails.”

Kiku freezes.

For a long moment, he’s rendered immobile by sheer disbelief. Then he sees the other boy’s head begin to turn and is stirred from his shock.

Kiku turns and _runs._

He could _see_ him. The human boy _saw_ through his glamour. Kiku may be young, but he’s a kitsune, and deceptions and trickery and glamours and disguises are what they _do._ It should be impossible for a human, no matter what kind, no matter what connection to the Wild they have, to see through his glamour.

His heart is pounding. Is this what Yao meant when he said Sorcerers were dangerous? Is this why he’s so against them coming to the forest when the humans are in it?

Something sick and painful coils in Kiku’s stomach. Yao has been so careful. They’ve been here for years, and never been seen. But Kiku has disobeyed Yao. He disobeyed Yao, and was seen. He may have put them all in danger. Young though they were, and strangely liked by the spirits of the flora, but they were humans, and probably Sorcerers, and so, a danger.

Kiku has put them all in danger. The shame hangs over him like a thundercloud, as he races back up the mountain.

\--

Kiku does not tell Yao.

His tongue is tied. _He cannot do it._ His chest is tight and he feels something he hasn’t truly felt since he’s come to America. _Fear._ If Yao finds out, he may punish him severely, or cast him away entirely. It is the dragon’s right. Kiku has broken one of his rules, scorned his authority, and put his precious family in danger. It is well within Yao’s right to banish him from his territory.

Kiku is terrified. He is so scared that he cannot even go near them. Yao and Mei and Yong Soo and Xiang and Lei and Tai and Linh. He lurks away from them, head low and heart pounding. He stays in the caves and he paces along the ledges of the mountain higher up and he cowers by the shady pools when the sun begins to set and he hears Yao calling.

It’s unusual for him to stay away so absolutely, to not return to Yao within the day. And he knows the longer he stays away the more suspicious the dragon will become. But there’s no way to hide his guilt, his terror, his mistake. If he returns he will have to tell, and then, he will probably have to leave.

Maybe Yao will kill him. It is his right. It is the dragon’s right.

Kiku is so scared.

He doesn’t know what to _do._ If only he could…undo what he’s already done. Make it so that he was never seen. Fix his mistake. _Somehow._

Maybe he can.

Kiku is a kitsune. Deceptions and trickery and manipulation of the mind are what they do. They’ve been fooling and playing with and twisting around the humans of Japan for millennia. He’s never attempted it before, but he’s certain he could erase the child’s memory if he tried. He _knows_ he could.

And what if the child has told others of him? He told his friend, the one with the aura like smoke and chalk. He may have told others. He may have told the entire town.

 _Erase them all,_ he thinks, a little fanatically, _Before Yao finds out._

He refuses to dwell on the illogicalities, the shortcomings of the plan. It’s all he has to cling to, his only hope of not being cast out or killed. So he doesn’t dwell, doesn’t even allow himself to think. Just runs back down the mountain, determined to find the child, and to erase the mistake he made.

It’s getting dark, when he enters the forest. The setting sun is obscured by the canopy of trees, the leaves clustered tightly together on the thick branches. Kiku’s sight is not significantly impaired, but he’s aware that the likelihood of the child being in the forest is slimmer, now. Humans cannot see at night.

But can Sorcerers?

His own lack of knowledge is both an annoyance and an impairment. It occurs to Kiku that the forest is quite large, the humans he saw were quite small, and he doesn’t know the area well. He’s only ever come here with Yao before, after all.

He’s not sure whether or not it’s shameful to ask for directions. Surely, regardless of him being a kitsune, it’s reasonable to accept that he doesn’t know a territory he’s never traversed alone well, and to ask locals for assistance? Or maybe, being a kitsune, he’s not supposed to _ask._ He’s supposed to _demand._ But Yao wouldn’t like that. And the idea makes Kiku uncomfortable.

The nymphs are beginning to furl themselves, to curl up inside their trees for the night, and Kiku looks up at them nervously and uncertain. He eventually comes to a stop beneath a tree whose nymph is braiding her hair on a lower branch, relaxed in the evening chill.

Looking up at her, another intrusive thought sneaks up on him. The youkai here have treated him with wary respect, yes, but that was in Yao’s company. In the forest alone, he’s only been treated with silence. He took it to be respect, perhaps a little fear, but what if it wasn’t?

Kiku knows that he isn’t in Japan anymore. He knows that things are different here. But still, he hesitates, as he stands beneath the tree. He’s suddenly afraid to speak, afraid of the reaction he will get. Afraid that, again, he will be ignored, or snubbed, or mocked. Or hurt. Like he was by the youkai in Japan.

But the dragon’s rage would be worse than that, worse than any derision a nymph could cast upon him. And so Kiku forces himself to appear certain, to seem proud. He raises his tails and looks up, calling the nymph’s attention to himself with a short pulse of energy.

“Good evening,” he says, in a common forest tongue, “I have a question.”

The nymph looks startled, pausing in her half-finished braid and looking down at him with eyes wide. But then her expression cools into a calmer, more unfazed expression. It surprises Kiku, for a moment, but as he looks closer, he notes that her tree is very old. She may be beneath him in status, but she is above him in age and experience.

“If it pleases me to answer, I will,” she replies cooly, “Ask your question, child.”

The youkai of Japan would never dare to speak to a kitsune like that, even a young one. But then again, the youkai of Japan would never have spoken to Kiku at all, unless to mock him. He doesn’t know whether to be offended at how she’s addressed him, or pleased that she’s bothered to acknowledge him at all.

He misses the quiet simplicity of the caves, for all their isolation and loneliness.

“There was a human child in the forest,” Kiku says, with as much authority and loftiness as he can muster, “With bright hair and a smell like trees. Do you know of him?”

The leaves of the nymph’s tree all rustle, and she straightens a little, a few of the furled blossoms in her hair opening.

“Yes, the human boy who feels Wild,” she answers, “He runs with the Red Ones, the humans with magic. Everyone in the forest knows them. It is only you on the mountain who do not.”

An admonishment. Kiku tries not to bristle.

“It is safer,” he defends, flatly, “Humans are dangerous. Especially _Sorcerers._ ”

The nymph looks faintly amused. Kiku tries not to take offense at her expression.

“They are,” she agrees, “But that boy, that tree-smelling child, he is not a Red Human, he merely keeps company with them. He is dangerous only for his eyes, which See much. There is little he can do. He has no magic.”

 _That_ surprises Kiku. With the strange scent, and the ability to See, and see through his glamour at that…“He is not a Sorcerer?”

The nymph shakes her head. “He is not.”

“Are you certain he is human?” Kiku asks, insistent, “He feels-,”

“He is human,” says the nymph emphatically, and Kiku bristles a little, at the interruption.

“He is human,” she continues, choosing to ignore his indignation. Instead, she fixes him a with pointed look, a suspicious one. “Fox child, for what purpose are you asking? Has your master commanded you to do so?”

Kiku knows immediately who she’s referring to when she says ‘master’, and he’s too overcome with terror at the thought of him to be offended by the insinuation that he’s a servant. His voice leaves him entirely for a few long moments, mouth dry with fear.

“No,” he says, once he’s remembered how to speak, “No, this is not asked on the dragon’s command.”

“Then what is your purpose?” demands the nymph, “The child is not dangerous.”

She seems almost defensive. Defensive of the child. It’s strange.

“Only his eyes,” Kiku replies, repeating her earlier statement, gaze narrowed, “If he is human, and not a Sorcerer, than how is it that he Sees?”

The nymph looks irritated. All her blossoms are furled again, her posture rigid and unyielding as the tree trunk itself.

“Humans are born like that, sometimes.” She says, stiffly. “Rarer in this time, but in the old days, with a frequency that would surprise you.” Her eyes are narrowed now. Everything about her has become suspicious and unfriendly. “I ask again, fox, what is your purpose in asking? You may be the only one here, but we know of your kind. We know what you tailed foxes like to do to humans. Is it your intention to play one of your tricks? To do harm to the child?”

Again, so strangely defensive of him. Kiku doesn’t understand it.

“I will not harm him,” Kiku asserts, “The dragon would never permit it.” Which is the truth. Part of Yao’s deal with Rajni is extending his protection over to the humans in the town as well, even if he avoids them. Every youkai in the area knows it, have been made to know it, to ensure they don’t act out of turn. The nymph has no reason to trust the word of a fox, but she’ll trust him to fear the dragon’s wrath. Which he does. Terribly.

And true to his suppositions, she seems satisfied, appeased by the answer.

“Yes,” she agrees, relaxing just a little. “The Lord dragon would never permit it. And to harm the child would raise the ire of the Red Humans, as well. Unrecommended. They are powerful.”

Kiku’s stomach twists. He gets the feeling that the other child, the smoke and chalk one with brown hair, is not one of the sorcerers, not one of the Red Humans that are feared by Yao and well known by the forest youkai. It seems more and more likely, that he has not yet met the _real_ reason that Yao is cautious about going into the forest.

“Not just the Red Humans,” the nymph continues, “What a strange little human boy he is. He smells like loam, like a forest floor. My sisters like him, even though they wish they didn’t. I think they would also be upset, if he were harmed. They, and the flower folk, and perhaps even the wind spirit. They also are fond of the child.”

She sounds almost smug, and Kiku is becoming more confused.

“It gets harder to believe that he is a powerless human.” He states flatly.

“He is. We all see it to be so. He merely has the Sight.”

“Seeing does not afford an ability to look through glamours. He saw through mine.”

The nymph pauses then. “ _Did_ he? That is interesting. Such a strange boy. Perhaps your glamour just wasn’t very powerful?”

“I am a kitsune,” Kiku snaps, drawing himself up, “Acknowledge my ability to deceive and mislead, if nothing else.”

“Fairly put,” the nymph concedes, looking appraising. “This is why you seek him. Because he saw through your tricky tailed fox glamour.”

“Yes.”

“And when you find him?”

“It is not my intention to do him harm.”

“But you choose not to say what your intention is.”

“It is my right.”

“As it is mine to deny you the information you desire.”

Kiku barely contains the frustrated noise that threatens to bubble up from his throat. “Yes. It is. Though I will merely ask another.”

“And will find a similar barrier, I believe,” counters the nymph, smugly. “It will surprise you, fox child, how this forest has come to enjoy that child’s presence. Clumsy and human he may be, but there is something within him that draws us.”

“So he’s not completely human.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No, I did not.”

Silence. Kiku exhales heavily. An image springs unbidden to his mind, of Yong Soo chasing his own tail around in a circle. Going nowhere, and achieving nothing.

He can’t return to the mountain without fixing his mistake. He’ll never see Yong Soo act like a buffoon again if he can’t find this human child.

He’s surprised by how much that idea upsets him.

“If you wish to come upon the human boy, then you merely need to wait for the sun to rise. Most days find him here, in the trees with us.” The nymph says suddenly, unexpectedly breaking the thick silence that had descended. “Whatever your intention is, perhaps you will be dissuaded from it, when the sun has come out.”

Then she draws herself up, up into the upper branches of her tree. The conversation is over.

\--

It is Kiku’s first night in the forest, and he spends it in a strange mixture of wonderment and unease. His caves are quiet. The mountain at night is quiet. The forest is not. It hums and whispers. Ghosts move through it and the river nymphs continue to babble and gossip and small creatures hidden in the grass and the forest floor continue to dart about. Spirits of nocturnal creatures, nightbirds and lumbering night hunters, move about sleekly, eyes luminescent in the darkness.

Initially they are wary as they pass by where Kiku’s curled himself up. But the forest grows used to him, as the night drags on, and soon his fur is moved by rushes of air as things hurry pass him, as they fly over his head. As they hop over him or dash past. He becomes another fixture of the forest. Not, in this moment at least, an obtrusive outsider.

All the same, he sleeps fitfully. He’s grown used to the silence of his caves. He has grown used to sleeping outside the house, hearing the sounds of Yao and the halflings inside. He has also grown used to the rare nights where he stays with them. When they are all sleeping outside, amongst the grass and underneath the stars. Mei choosing to sleep pressed against Kiku’s side, and Xiang with her because they are rarely apart, and Kiku close enough to Yao that he can feel his warmth, can feel the phantom touch of his fire-hot scales.

But the forest at night is not silent like his caves, and is not familiar like Yao’s mountain. And so Kiku is mostly awake, and when he does sleep, he dreams of the kitsune clans of Japan, driving him out of his parents’ old territory, and all of them wearing Yao’s face.

\--

It’s overcast in the morning, the sun’s rising rays hidden beneath a canopy of cloud. Kiku wakes to a light drizzle, blinking upwards at the gray sky. He is disoriented at first, but then the cold shock of memory hits, and he remembers where he is, and why.

He has avoided Yao for a day. He’s stayed away a full night. The dragon will be worried now. Or suspicious.

Kiku’s attempt to quell his own panic is marred, somewhat, by the weather. The nymph says the boy comes out in the light, but the sun is obscured. It is cloudy and raining. Does this mean the human boy will not come to the forest today? Will Kiku have to wait longer to fix, to erase his own mistake?

Again, he does not allow himself to dwell. He can’t. Instead, he pulls himself to his feet, and begins looking.

The forest at dawn is a beautiful thing, but Kiku is aware of that only abstractly. He’s too worried, too consumed with fear of his own fate if he doesn’t find this human and erase his memory. His fur becomes very wet, very quickly, and a chill settles over him, that has him shivering as he walks. But still, he senses nothing. He smells nothing. No sign of the humans.

He considers asking again, seeing if any of the youkai here know where the human can be found, but he’s hesitant, unwilling, to go through a conversation like the one he had with the nymph again. And what if she’s right? All of her claims that many inhabitants of the forest will do all they can to protect the boy? For reasons Kiku himself can’t fathom?

The clouds thin a little, as the sky climbs higher into the sky, but the rain doesn’t stop.

It doesn’t rain a lot in California, and Kiku has always appreciated that. It rained with semi-frequency in Japan. He remembers when some malicious spirits had destroyed his dwelling, leaving him exposed for a few nights during which the rain hadn’t stopped. He remembers being chased away from all territory with any sort of cover, because all of that territory belonged to the kitsune clans, who did not want him sullying it. He remembers how much he grew to hate the rain. He misses his caves on the mountain. He misses the mountain. He misses-

“You’re a kitsune, aren’t you?”

Kiku tries not to jump, but he’s on edge and lost in his own thoughts, and so he does. He jumps a few feet in the air and spins around, wet fur bristling and mouth halfway to a snarl.

“Settle young one,” says the same voice, somewhere above Kiku, where he can’t see. “I merely wish to talk.”

The tone seems to be just shy of mocking, and that, combined with the fact that he can’t see who’s talking to him, keeps Kiku’s fur bristled, and his form hunched and tense.

“To talk of what?” he asks, peering up into the rain, trying to see who’s talking to him from where.

“You are looking for the little human boy, the witchling, aren’t you?” says the disembodied voice, from a point that Kiku still can’t find. But his words make Kiku pause in his search, and he stiffens. “Witchling?”

“Oh? Could you not tell?” The voice sounds smug again. Everything about it rubs Kiku the wrong way. Particularly the part where he can’t _see_ who’s talking to him. “Only one type of human is born with the Sight,” the voice continues, “And those are witches. Do you know about witches, young kitsune?”

 _Yes,_ Kiku knows about witches. They are very, very hated by youkai, all around the world. Humans born with the ability to See, as the voice has said, and with magic. Sorcerers make blood deals and pacts to get their magic, their connection to the Wild, but witches are humans that had been born with it. And they were notorious for abusing it. The latent power within a witch was always low, and history showed, time and time again, that witches always grew hungry for more. Catching youkai and using them in spells to make themselves more powerful. Harvesting the energy and spirits of plant and flower and tree youkai and using them in their brews. Forcing youkai into slavery as their familiars. The stories are endless.

“I know about witches,” Kiku says lowly, heart thundering. “I was told the boy is completely human.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s nicer to believe that,” says the voice, “But normal humans can’t See. That’s just a fact. _Everyone_ knows that.”

The tree nymph had said that it happened, sometimes, in the past. That sometimes normal humans were born with the Sight. But Kiku is more inclined to believe the Voice, hovering somewhere above him. Perhaps it is more unwise to trust someone he can’t see, but he feels like he’s being mocked, belittled, for believing that it was even possible for a normal human to See. And he doesn’t like it.

“I said I was told, not that I believed it,” Kiku says defensively, “Of course, it makes sense that he’s a witch.”

“Of course,” repeats the voice, and Kiku tries not to bristle, tries not to feel, again, as if he’s being mocked.

“I was glad to hear that you were looking for him,” continues the voice, “That there was still Folk in the forest not under his spell.”

Kiku startles a little. “Spell?”

“What normal Child of the Wild would willingly spend time with a human?” explains the voice, “And yet the fairies flit about him and the animal spirits flock to his side. Even the tree nymphs fawn over him. A _human._ A _witch._ What could it be, if not a spell? But you’re not affected, are you, kitsune?”

Kiku is floored. No one else has even suggested that there was a witch in the forest. Not Yao, not Rajni, not the tree nymph. Let alone that there was a witch casting a _spell._ It makes sense, it offers explanations for all of Kiku’s own misgivings, but still…“I- no, I suppose I’m not. But, a spell? Isn’t he very young? And surely someone would have noticed.”

“I noticed,” the voice replies, tone near to smug again, “And he keeps company with the Dealmakers, the humans who use blood magic. Is it that unreasonable to believe?”

Kiku’s head is hurting. And his stomach. Something doesn’t feel right. “…No, I suppose not.”

“And you’re looking for him. Which makes sense, of course.” Continues the voice, “A noble kitsune like you would never tolerate a human witch existing in their lands, endangering us all.”

Kiku is feeling more and more uneasy. These aren’t his lands, they are Yao’s. Even Rajni has more of a claim than he does. And he is not looking for the child, for the witch, to…to…he has no plan to…

“I can tell you where the boy is,” says the voice, speaking again after Kiku fails to respond, “He will not come out today, it is too wet, and he is alone. But I can tell you where he is.”

Kiku’s heart is thundering in his chest. He suddenly feels as if everything is spinning out of control. He wishes he wasn’t speaking to this voice alone. He wishes he knew what it was, and what it wanted. He wishes he were back on the mountain. He wishes he _could_ be back on the mountain, wishes he had not disobeyed Yao. Is the voice really asking him, really suggesting that he kill the human child?

Kiku swallows. “I...I was told the child is protected. By the sorcerers.”

“The sorcerers rarely come out, these days.” The voice replies immediately. “The woman is with child, and so her partner stays with her, inside their walls. Without them, the witch child is alone and defenseless. Perhaps it’s only with them in proximity that he’s able to work his spell, and so he does not venture out without them. It all comes together, you see? It all makes sense.”

_Then why was he out yesterday? Then who was the child with him then? Who are you? Why did I come here alone?_

But Kiku’s goal has always been to find the child. He cannot return to the mountain without finding the child. And the voice is offering to him the child’s location. What Kiku chooses to do afterwards is entirely up to him.

“Very well.” He says, trying to steady his voice, “Where is this human…this witch?”

\--

Kiku is breaking so many of Yao’s rules.

So close to the edge of the forest. So close to the town. So close to a _house._ A large, human house. Nothing like the mess of branches and roots that Tai made. Nothing like Yao’s ‘house’ up on the mountain. This is a real human dwelling, smelling of brick and concrete and human electricity and oil and gas.

The human boy is inside. The ‘witch’.

The rain has stopped, though the air is still damp and cool, a closer cluster of clouds in the sky. It is near to midday now, perhaps a little past. The day is half gone. Soon, the sun will set, and Kiku will have been gone for two days, and Yao may come looking for him. Perhaps he has already begun asking around, asking the trees if they know where he’s gone. Perhaps he already knows of the mistake Kiku made.

Kiku has to fix it.

He has an uncomfortable, unsettled feeling within him. The Voice was clearly implying, suggesting, insisting, that Kiku kill this human child. This _witch_ child. And that is not what Kiku came here to do. He told the nymph that he had no intention to harm the child, and he meant it. This one human has done no wrong to Kiku, and besides, harming humans is strictly disallowed by both Yao and Rajni.

But do they know that the boy’s a witch?

Kiku finds it hard to believe that the nymph wouldn’t have known, wouldn’t have suspected or realized that the child is a witch. Had she purposefully misled him? Or, is it as the Voice said, and the boy has woven a spell that blinds the Wild to his true nature? And the nymph had merely been caught within it?

What it comes down to, Kiku thinks, is that he needs to form his own opinions. He’s only encountered the child once, disastrous as it was. So he must meet him again, and decide. If it seems he is merely human, than Kiku will proceed with his original plan, and erase his memory by drawing on his latent powers as a kitsune. And if the boy seems to be a witch…

Kiku’s not certain of how he’s to discern whether or not the child is a witch. He’s never met one before. He’s not certain what they feel like. Is it what he sensed before? That forest green aura? But, that doesn’t seem to match all the horrible stories about witches, their terrible magic, and the horrors they inflict upon the Children of the Wild. That doesn’t seem right at all.

 _If only I could ask Yao._ Kiku shakes away the thought immediately. It only makes him feel worse.

He is breaking so many of Yao’s rules. _So many._ But still, he does not stop. Because if he breaks just one or two more of those rules than he will undo the original rule he broke and somehow everything will turn out okay. He hopes.

Kiku continues towards the house, and as he gets closer, he picks up the boy’s aura again. Inside. There are others he can feel inside as well, but they feel plain, dirty and cold, like humans do. The boy’s aura, still bright green and warm, stands out like a beacon.

Is this _really_ what a witch feels like?

Kiku stays as low to the ground as he can get, and continues creeping towards the house. The grass surrounding the human dwelling is short, cut down. It feels unnaturally bristly under his paws, and is barely taller than his ankles. He feels exposed and nervous, vulnerable without the familiar feeling of being surrounded by foliage and flora.

There are trees around the back of the house, where it edges close to the forest. Kiku moves towards them, and pauses for a moment. There is a particularly tall tree, whose branches stretch out towards the brick wall and glass windows of the house. Kiku inserts himself into the shade of it, and then darts quickly up the trunk.

He can feel the glow of the boy, can smell that unmistakable human-forest scent, radiating outwards from the closest window. Kiku creeps out along the branch towards it. It is partially open, cloth curtains, like the leaf ones Tai made, pulled back and waving slightly in the breeze. Through the gap between them, where the wind lifts them up and leaves them billowing, Kiku can see him. The human, or the witch.

He’s sitting on his bed, the human nest of cloth and wood and fluff, reading. His knees are drawn up, and there’s nothing in his countenance that suggests he’s aware of Kiku’s presence. He looks the same as that brief glance that Kiku caught the day previous. Bright hair and bright eyes. He feels somewhat less foresty, perhaps because he is no longer in the forest, and there are no flower fairies or animal spirits hovering about him. Alone like this, surrounded by cold, artificial things, he seems remarkably like a normal human boy. But his aura is still strange, and his scent is still odd. _Like loam, like the forest floor,_ the nymph had said.

Thinking of her makes Kiku remember what the Voice had said, about the boy casting a spell on the Youkai of the forest. He remembers what he is here to do. To…to either fix his mistake, find a way to erase the boy’s memory, or to…

It all depends whether or not the boy is actually a witch. Whether he really _has_ cast a spell on the forest. There has to be a way for Kiku to determine the truth, to know for certain. He’s a kitsune, he should be able to unravel any trick of the mind conjured up by a human, whether they have magic or not.

He creeps forward on the branch again. The boy looks up.

Kiku has, once again, spun a glamour around himself. A glamour he spent time on. Not a hastily crafted one like last time. A distortion field around himself, like the forcefields he’s practiced making, but different. Like the mild illusions he’s practiced weaving, but different. A mixture of both. Something powerful and solid.

This time, there is no immediate exclamation from the boy. His eyes are centered on the spot Kiku is crouched in, but there is no sign of recognition on his face. He stares out the window, his gaze moving around, looking at the sky, at the tree, and past. But his eyes always return to the spot where Kiku is crouched, and his expression grows more and more confused.

With a frown, the boy slides off his bed, walking over to the window and pushing the curtains aside, before struggling to heave it open all the way. Instinctively, Kiku moves backwards on the branch.

The boy places his hands on the ledge and leans his head out, staring again at the spot where Kiku is standing. Close enough that Kiku could reach out and touch the boy. Close enough for him to grab him and pull him out of the window entirely.

Kiku thinks of the Voice, he thinks of his conflicting reasons for being here, and shivers.

“Someone _is_ there,” says the boy out loud, retracting back into his room with a nervous expression. “H-hello! I, I can’t really see you but I know you’re there. Wh-why are you by my window?”

He sounds young, and uneasy, and not at all like Kiku would expect a devious witch to sound. Is he worried that he’s been found out? Is he only powerful when he’s out in the forest, surrounded by those who he deceives and the sorcerers who protect him? Or is he as the nymph said, a normal human child with unusually keen eyes? Can he _really_ not see through Kiku’s glamour? Is it because Kiku put more effort into it? Is it because the boy is alone, with none of his usual companions about him? Is it because he is young, and his witch power irregular? Or is the boy merely faking to catch Kiku off guard?

Kiku needs to make a decision. But in order to make that decision, he needs to decide, once and for all, whether or not this child is a witch. He doesn’t have the knowledge or experience to be able to tell through scent or sight alone, so he must draw upon the natural talents that he _does_ have.

Trickery. Like the fox he is.

The boy is still staring, squinting his eyes. He’s leaned forward again, so that he’s almost sticking his head out the window. He does not seem to have advanced hearing, or ability to detect scent. For all his sight, he seems to have trouble seeing in the slightly overcast sky, and the haze of misty rain. He seems painfully human, the artificial glow from the electricity in the room behind him emblazoning him in that unnatural light.

Kiku takes a deep breath, and drops his glamour.

The boy makes a surprised squeaking sound, reeling backwards and nearly hitting his head on the top of the window. Then he moves forward again, grinning.

“I knew I saw you!” he says excitedly. “Yesterday, in the forest! No one else did, so I thought perhaps I hadn’t really seen you, but here you are, oh wow-,”

“I know what you are,” says Kiku, interrupting the boy abruptly, “And why you could see me.”

Kiku has never spoken with a human before. He uses telepathy to speak to others, most of the time, but the idea of using telepathy to speak with a human makes his skin crawl. Speaking out loud is awkward; his mouth is not made for it. His spoken English, at least, has reached a proficient level.

The boy’s eyes widen. He looks startled, a little confused.

“I’ve got, um, I’ve got the Sight,” says the boy, moving back again, “That’s what-, that’s why-,”

“It’s okay, you don’t need to lie,” says Kiku, heart pounding. “I know that you are a witch.”

 _Here_ is Kiku’s gamble. His attempt at discovering the truth. He’ll trick the boy into revealing himself. Give him a false sense of security, and get the proof he needs to act. Kiku is a fox, and trickery is his birthright.

At the moment, the child only looks confused, and so Kiku continues.

“You are pretending to be a regular human, which I understand,” Kiku says, “But you do not have to pretend with me. I know you are more powerful than you seem, and I respect that.”

“Um,” the boy blinks, twisting his hands together, “Um, I think you may, you might maybe have the wrong person? I really _am_ just a regular human. Except for the seeing, I really can’t-,”

“I understand you do not want the forest to know you are a witch,” Kiku continues, his heart racing in his chest, “But you should know that I have no desire to stop what you are doing. If you wish to continue your spell on the youkai in the forest, that is your business. In fact, I find it rather impressive, the size and scope of the spell-,”

“I didn’t put a spell on anyone!” exclaims the boy, sounding bewildered, and a little distressed. “Why would I- I can’t _do_ spells. And, putting spells on people is wrong. Mrs- S-she said-,”

“If you were looking for someone to aid you, I would do so gladly,” Kiku continues, determined to finish his point, his test, even though the words disgust him. “I would be delighted to help a powerful witch in his continued deception of the forest.”

Silence.

Kiku’s heartbeat is thundering in his ears. Has he won? Has he tricked the witch into revealing himself at last? Was he convincing? He’s never really tried to play a trick before, fox though he is, and he’s so nervous he can hardly see straight. Does the boy look like he’s let his guard down? Like he’s ready to confess?

The boy looks….

_Horrified._

“I haven’t _deceived_ anyone!” he explodes, “I would _never._ That’s _wrong._ You’re _wrong._ I’m- I’m- you must be one of the bad ones, the ones I’m supposed to stay away from, if you think it’s okay to put spells on people, and I- I- I’ll tell and-,”

Before Kiku can respond, the door to the boy’s bedroom slams open. The child actually screams, and this time, he _does_ smack his head on the window as he tries to yank himself inside.

Kiku retreats back along the branch, not bothering to raise his glamour back up. The human who has just entered the room is just that- human. Smelling of metal and oil and jarringly disconnected from everything else Kiku can feel. In terms of appearance, they are similar to the child, with fair hair and large eyebrows, but the aura is completely different. Flatly human. No connection to anything at all.

Kiku’s mind is racing. Does this mean, without a doubt, that the boy is _not_ a witch? The kind of genuine distress he was exhibiting seems hard to fake.

“What are you shouting about?” the new human asks crossly, “What’s the matter?”

“Sorry Cymry,” says the child, one hand rubbing the spot he hit his head and eyes flicking between the new human and the window, “I…I…there was something outside my window, I was trying to shoo it away.”

“There’s nothing outside your window, Arthur,” says the other human tiredly, without even glancing towards the window in question, “You’re seeing things again, or making things up, like always. And if you’re scared, just stop leaving your window open, like Mum keeps telling you. You seriously need to stop shouting when nothing’s the matter. I’m going to start ignoring you too, like dad’s told us all to.”

The child wilts more and more under the other’s words, nodding mutely, eyes still cast towards the window and tree.

Still huddled down on the branch, Kiku’s mind is racing. It seems, almost without a doubt, that the Voice was wrong. That the child is _not_ a witch. Kiku doesn’t know which makes less sense: a normal human child capable of seeing through glamours, or a witch existing in Yao and Rajni’s territory without either of them knowing or taking action. But seeing the boy like this, in the human dwelling with other humans, seems to cement the fact that he is just a human child, though an unusual one. An unusually green and bright one.

 _If he’s not a witch, then I have to erase his memory,_ Kiku thinks, _I_ have _to. It’s the only way I can go back._

He tries to concentrate, tries to think about _how_ to do it. He just has to push with his powers, right? He just has to push as hard as he can with his mind, and focus on the child’s mind, and what he wants to happen. How badly he needs the boy’s memories to go away. That’s all he has to do.

Eventually, the other human leaves, closing the door behind him. The child turns towards the window once more, face pale and troubled. He locks eyes with Kiku again, and opens his mouth to say something.

Kiku gathers up all his concentration and _pushes._

He feels an instant of connection, of contact, and the smell of the forest fills his senses. The boy’s eyes widen, and Kiku gets a sudden feeling of _confusion_ and _curiosity_ and _concern_ and _warmth_ and-

His hold breaks, suddenly, and he feels the threads of his power explode out of his grasp. It explodes outwards from his mind until he can feel it shock through his entire body and he can feel his tails tingling and-

Blue energy bursts outwards, shooting through the open window and slamming into the boy, who flies backwards and hits the opposite wall with a loud, painful sound.

There is a moment of silence, where Kiku is stunned and horrified and has no idea what just happened or what he just did, and the human child is in a stunned, unmoving heap on the floor.

Then the child begins to cry.

He pushes himself upwards and clutches the back of his head, tears streaming down his cheeks. He’s sobbing, staring at Kiku with watery, wide eyes, and Kiku can vaguely feel a sensation of _why why why_ repeating over and over _._

“Why did you _do_ that?” sobs the boy, hands still clasped to his head, “Why do you _hate_ me? What did I _do?_ ”

Confusion and pain trickle down into Kiku’s mind, and he knows it’s not his own. He backs up along the tree branch, suddenly desperate to get away, desperate to be anywhere but here, whether the human’s memory is intact or not.

But the boy staggers to his feet, one hand still pressed to the back of his head, and stumbles towards the window.

“Why are you so afraid?” insists the child, “All I can feel is how afraid you are! What did I _do_?”

His face is red, and his eyes are scrunched and puffy, chest heaving with wet hiccups. Behind him, Kiku can hear the wind howling through the forest, the leaves and branches all crashing together.

Kiku thinks of Yao. As hard as he tries not to, he thinks of him.

He thinks of him because the forest is his. He thinks of him because in this forest Yao has made rules. And the rules are that those under his charge are not to go into the forest without him- Kiku has broken this rule. And the rules are that they are to stay away from the humans- Kiku has broken this rule. And the rules are that no one, no youkai, no child of the Wild, is to harm a human.

Kiku has broken this rule.

Kiku is afraid because there is no hope for him, now. He’s well and truly ruined any chance he had. Any possibility of staying here, of going back up the mountain, is gone. Staying in the forest, staying in this valley- gone.

_Why are you so afraid?_

_‘If I don’t leave now, he will kill me’_. Kiku doesn’t know if the thought stays in his head or if he accidentally says it out loud. Either way, the child’s eyes widen again, and he finally drops his hand away from the back of his head, pressing it to his chest.

Their eyes meet again, one last time, before Kiku jerks himself away, jumping off the forest branch and down to the grass below.

There is no point- not to anything, not anymore. Kiku is not a full-blooded kitsune. It stands to reason that he would not have all of their abilities. And his attempt to claim a heritage that he has no right to has ruined everything for him further. It has robbed him of his home.

So he jumps out of the tree, away from the human child he has hurt, and begins to run.

 _Once again,_ Kiku runs.

Bitterness and shame; an acrid taste on his tongue, churning in his stomach and burning in his chest. It is true then, what they said in Japan. That dishonour follows you. That it is not something you can escape. That it is in your blood, and stays in your blood, from generation to generation.

The kitsune clans took little stock in the ancient beliefs of the humans. In the act of taking one’s life in order to stop the spread of one’s shame. But Kiku wonders now- if his parents, if his shameful pure-blooded mother had taken her own life, would her dishonour not have been passed down to him? If she was going to die anyway- if they were going to change their minds, and not permit them to exist on the edge of their territory, not permit them to exist at _all_ , then wouldn't it have been better if she had just killed herself before?

Maybe then, the dishonour wouldn't be following Kiku. Maybe then, he wouldn't be so burdened with a shameful nature. Maybe then, he wouldn't be running again. Running from Yao, running from the child, running from the entire forest, which is surely laughing at him. _Again_ , laughing at him. Echoing over and over, until his ears are ringing with it.

_Here comes the dishonoured young fox~_

_No-name no-name!_

_The filthy half blood! Do you smell the human on it? Can you smell how he stinks up the forest?_

_The dishonour is in the blood._

_Let him follow his parents in their shame._

_Kill him._

_Kill him._

_ころしてー_

"Wait! Hey, fox, wait!”

The voice startles him, coming from behind him and not from the thunderous echoes of his memory. It’s distant, but loud in a strange way, like he can hear it in his ears and his head at the same time.

He tries to run faster, tries to get away, but tree roots tangle about his paws and send him sprawling to the ground. Kiku struggles in the tangle of roots, heart thundering and breath ragged. The entire treetop is rustling, murmurs from the nymphs who should all be asleep.

_‘You promised our sister you would not harm the child. Do you think your careful wording absolves you of guilt? You dreadful, deceitful creature.’_

Kiku turns his head and looks up, tries to figure out which nymph has snared him, and why. But the upper branches of the trees are featureless and faceless. Tightly clustered leaves and unfriendly bark. The treetops rustle again, and it is at once both urgent and uncertain.

_‘That child has harmed no one, and you lead him to be-,’_

Something is stumbling through the forest towards him. Kiku tenses, as it gets closer, and he hears and senses it more clearly. Breathing more ragged than his own, and a troublingly familiar aura. Warm and green.

The child emerges from behind the trees, out of breath and flushed red. His eyes, puffy and swollen, widen as they see Kiku, who bares his teeth as the boy approaches and struggles in the confines of the roots.

The boy stumbles, making a small and frightened sound. Then he sniffles, rubbing one of his hands across his face.

“I-I don’t know if I’m supposed to be afraid of you,” he says, voice wobbly, “You said bad things, and the trees don’t seem to like you, but you don’t _feel_ bad. But…”

He sniffles again, and touches the back of his head. A phantom echo of his pain reverberates in the back of Kiku’s head, and the treetops rustle again, the murmur amongst them angrier.

But Kiku is beginning to feel angry himself. Angry at everything that’s gone wrong for him. Angry at the roots that are trapping him. Angry at this human child that is _daring_ to speak to him.

“What did I do?” continues the child, voice thick with tears, “Did I do something wrong when I saw you yesterday? I didn’t _mean_ to-,”

“Why did you chase me out here?” snaps Kiku, “ _Just what are you trying to prove?_ You have no right to question-,”

“Are you kidding?!” shouts the boy, watery eyes suddenly narrowed and furious, “You came at me through my window! You said weird things and then hit me and then ran away and I don’t know _why-,_ ”

“If you’re not a witch, then you’re just a human,” snarls Kiku, fighting futilely again against the tangle of the roots, “You have no right to speak to me like that, you have no right to speak to me at all. _You shouldn’t be able to see me, you shouldn’t be able to hear me-,_ ”

“I. Have. The. Sight!” exclaims the child, stomping his foot, “That’s what I already said! That’s why-,”

“It doesn’t matter!” explodes Kiku, “I’m a kitsune! The sight doesn’t matter to us! We are masters at illusions and deceit! I had a glamour on! _You shouldn’t have seen me,_ it’s impossible for you to have seen me. You’re a liar and a witch, _or a trespassing human who’s cost me everything._ ”

A little of his terror, a little of his desolation, leaks out through his voice, and Kiku tries to bite back the broken, keening sound that is trying to spill past his teeth. It’s horrifying, and embarrassing, and if these tree roots don’t let go of him _right this moment-_

The child’s eyes are damp looking again, and his hands are still balled into little fists at his side. He sniffs once, rubbing a closed hand across his nose.

“I didn’t mean to,” he whispers, suddenly quiet, “I-I’m sorry I’ve done something wrong. I’m sorry you’re so scared. If I can help fix it, if there’s anything I can do to make it better-,”

“You can’t,” Kiku says, cutting him off, “You can’t.”

He feels exhausted. Tired in his head and his chest and all over his body where the roots still have him pinned down. He’s grateful for the silence that falls between them, even though the child is still standing there. Still looking at him with something dangerously close to pity. It makes the bitter taste in Kiku’s mouth all the worse.

The silence doesn’t last long. The human child bites his lip, and then takes a few steps forward, only flinching a little when Kiku growls.

“What are you afraid of?” the boy asks softly. “What do you think is going to hurt you be-because of me?”

Kiku snarls again, turning his face away. He is _not_ going to have a conversation with this human. He is _not_ going to acknowledge the child’s pity.

“Let me help,” insists the human, “If it’s my fault, I’m sure I can help. I know- I know people, who could help protect you. This forest is supposed to be safe for everyone. If something’s threatening to hurt you-,”

“Exactly,” snaps Kiku, unable to let the point go unanswered. “Exactly. _And because I hurt you,_ I have no place here.”

The child goes silent for a few seconds. Kiku looks at him out of the corner of his eye, and sees him reaching one hand up to touch the back of his head again.

“It was an accident, wasn’t it?” he says softly, “You didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”

Kiku keeps his face turned away.

“I’m not angry,” declares the child loudly, “I won’t- I won’t tell on you, since it was an accident. I promise. And, and whatever you’re scared of, I’ll-,”

A chill runs through the air suddenly. It is not a normal damp day chill, but something deeper, and more bitterly cold. Kiku’s fur fluffs up, and he tenses. Something about this is unsettlingly familiar.

The child before him stops talking abruptly, eyes wide. Slowly, he lifts his hands, rubbing them up and down his bare arms.

“What, what is that?” he asks, voice a little wobbly. “Sh-should I-,”

The treetops _roar_ suddenly, all the leaves churning together at once. The child jumps, staring upwards in confusion and fear. The nymph in the tree that has Kiku entangled leans her head out, clutching tightly to her branches.

“Child, _run,_ ” she says, her tone genuinely anxious, “There is a-,”

“Hello again, little fox. I see you’ve found the little _witch_.”

The trees fall silent abruptly, and the nymph disappears back into her leaves. The human child squeaks in surprise, scurrying backwards away from the direction of the voice.

And it is _the_ Voice. The one that Kiku heard earlier today. A bad feeling begins churning in the pit of his stomach and he stills, even as the roots pull away from his body at last.

“I-I’m not a,” the child’s breathing has gone heavy, and he stumbles back until he is pressed against the trunk of the tree. “Wh-who-?”

The ill feeling, the _dread_ feeling, increases, and Kiku begins to see his breath ghosting in front of him, frost on his fur in what should have been a warm summer day. When he gets to his feet, his legs are shaking.

The nymph in the tree that both Kiku and the child are under makes a hissing, angry sound, and one of her branches drops low to hang in front of the child, as if trying to shield him.

“Oh, but you’ve left him still alive,” tsks the Voice, “Well, that’s alright, you’ve brought him out when there’s no one around to protect him. _I can do the rest_.”

The conversational, indulgent tone goes out of the Voice completely, and Kiku becomes aware, painfully, heartstoppingly aware, of how badly he’s been manipulated. How badly he’s messed up. Beside him, he hears the child make a scared, whimpering sound, and sees him begin to shake, nose red and running with the cold.

It is then, that the Voice appears.

The air ripples in front of the branches of a nearby tree, until it parts completely, revealing something red, and scaled, and smoky, with a single row of teeth curled upwards into a grin.

A ghoul.

Kiku allowed himself be manipulated by a _ghoul._ In Yao’s forest. The angry rustling of the nymphs makes sense, suddenly, and Kiku feels like he’s going to throw up. The creature continues to grin, and the child continues to shake. Kiku can feel his terror, mixing in with his own nausea and shame. The evil aura of the creature is almost as sickening as Kiku’s own involvement in leading the child into its trap.

But.

But, if the ghoul kills the child, it answers all of Kiku’s problems. The human who saw him when he was not supposed to be seen disappears. The human who he ‘hurt’ disappears. Only the trees would know. Only they would remember. And what dragon would take the word of a tree nymph over a kitsune?

The child begins to cry as the ghoul’s grin widens, as its smoky red mass drifts closer. The nymph above them makes a fraught, panicked sound, and Kiku finds his mouth curling into a snarl.

No.

This is Yao’s forest. This is Yao’s territory. Hierarchies don’t matter here. Bloodlines don't matter here. All that matters is that it stays safe, for youkai and for humans and for everything in between. The fact that there is a _ghoul_ hiding itself here, disobeying Yao’s rules brazenly in the light of day, makes Kiku angrier than he could possibly articulate. If the child is killed here, Yao will be upset. If Rajni finds out, after he entrusted Yao with keeping the forest safe, he’ll be angry, and might stop trusting them. If the ghoul kills this child, it will be all Kiku’s fault.

_No._

Kiku jumps between the creature and the child, flaring his tails outward and making them hum with his power.

“This place belongs to the dragon on the mountain,” he growls, flicking his tails, now glowing blue, “No one, no human, no witch, _no one_ , is to be harmed within it.”

The ghoul has no eyes that Kiku can discern, just darkness and a single row of teeth, but its expression seems to change regardless. To something filled with dark humour.

“Oh _dear,_ ” it purrs lowly, “Have you fallen under the _spell_ as well? You, the noble kitsune? How _tragic._ ”

It’s mocking him, just like Kiku had suspected it had been earlier. There is no spell. This ghoul does not care, does not respect that he’s a kitsune. He’s been strung along because of his stupid, foolish pride. The same pride that made him avoid the house, made him avoid Rajni and come down to the forest against Yao’s wishes, approach the humans assured of his own invisibility.

He’d once asked Yao how he could live with himself, having given up his pride as a dragon to live in a human form. And Yao had told him, echoed by Rajni, that sometimes giving up your pride was the only way to survive. The only way to be able to live properly.

It’s taken a few years, but Kiku thinks he finally understands what they meant.

Kiku snarls again, baring all his teeth. He hasn’t fought before, not really. He knows he can make forcefields, and he knows he can do short blasts of energy, and he has his claws and his teeth. The ghoul is small. Its aura is terrifying, but that doesn’t mean it’s powerful. Kiku won’t attack it first, because of Yao’s rules, but once it makes its move he’s certain that he’ll be able to-

He’s flying through the air before he even completes the thought.

The ghoul moved faster than Kiku could see, faster than he’d seen anything move before in his life, and he’s flat on his back nearly a dozen feet away before he can blink.

He scrambles to his feet just in time to hear the human child scream, to hear his voice be cut off with a choked sound, and to see the ghoul lift the boy up by its long, red tail.

“An honest to goodness hedgewitch, in _this_ day and age!” it cackles, single row of teeth expanding across the entirety of the gaping maw that makes up its face. “And no one else has even _tried_ to eat you! They _do_ say that fortune favours the patient, and I have been _very_ patient.”

The child is clawing at the scaled tail encircling his neck, but it tightens mercilessly. Above them, the treetops are howling again. Branches and twigs are flying through the air to bounce away from the ghoul uselessly. The child’s lips are rapidly turning blue.

Kiku snarls, gathers up his concentration, and _pushes._

A blast of energy explodes outwards from him and crashes into the ghoul, and several nearby trees, and the ground, and everything within a four metre radius. The ghouls screeches and tumbles down from its midair perch, but maintains its hold on the child, who slams face first into the dirt.

Kiku leaps forward and pushes again, flicking his tails behind him and trying to concentrate the blast so that it’s more powerful and more direct than the last. The ghoul looks up at him with a snarl, a second and third row of teeth joining the first. The blast hits it directly in the chest, and it goes hurtling backwards, slamming into a tree, with the child dragging through the dirt behind it.

 _Let him GO!_ Kiku shouts with his mind, jumping and crashing his body into the creature. The ghoul’s claws slash through his fur, but it screams when it tries to grab at his tails, recoiling as if burned. Kiku bites down on the creature’s arm as hard as he can, and then stares down at it, gathering his concentration for one last blast.

But the creature finally uncoils its tail from the child’s neck and whips Kiku across the face with it, flinging him backwards again. Kiku’s vision is blurred as he scrambles to his feet, and by the time it clears and he can see straight again, the ghoul is gone.

Kiku scans the air for it desperately, trying to sense that chill, that uneasy patch of darkness, but with no success. His eyes fall on the child, who is lying motionless, still facedown in the dirt. A horrible, dreadful feeling twists Kiku’s stomach, and he stumbles towards him, ignoring the painful stinging all over his sides from where the ghoul scratched him.

With a raspy, wheezing sound, the child shudders, rolling off of his stomach and onto his back. One hand starts touching tenderly at his throat, and then his face, and as Kiku reaches him, he sits up.

The boy’s face is bruised and scratched, with blood leaking from his nose and down his lips. His breathing is labored and hoarse, and there’s a dazed look in his eyes. But he is alive. Hurt, but alive.

“Are you alright?” Kiku asks quietly, “Are you- _are you okay?_ ”

The child turns towards him blankly, still breathing heavily. His eyes are unfocused. There is a very red ring around his neck. Blood is dripping off his chin.

The trees are murmuring again. Kiku can see some of the nymphs, crouched down on the lower branches, looking on worryingly. Tree nymphs, so old and so aloof. They watch and sometimes they judge, but they never help. But tonight they did. They stopped Kiku from leaving after he’d accidentally led the child out, they had warned them as best they could. They had even tried to _protect_ the boy. It is not just that they behaved unusually, or bizarrely, it is that they behaved completely out of their nature, the nature of beings that lived for hundreds and thousands of years with minimal interactions with anything other then their own kind.

The tree nymphs must really like this child. The forest must really like this child. This child that Kiku almost got killed.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “I didn’t-, I didn’t mean for all of this to happen. _I didn’t mean to hurt you. I wasn’t trying to_ \- I didn’t know that it was going to attack you.”

There is no response from the child, and Kiku realizes, belatedly, that he hasn’t said everything out loud. He’s been slipping into speaking with the human mentally, without realizing it. It doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.

Then the child blinks, slowly, and his eyes focus a little, so that he’s actually looking at Kiku instead of staring blankly in his general direction. Then he drops his gaze down and reaches up with one hand to touch the blood running down his face. His expression twists suddenly, like he’s about to cry. But all he does is wipe away at that blood that’s dripped down his lips.

“Why?” he asks quietly, his voice hoarse, “Wh- why?”

 _I don’t have to explain myself to a human._ The usual thought, the usual pride, in a voice that rings with the old, royal accent of ancient Japan. Listening to that voice always made Kiku feel like he was closer to growing another tail, closer to being accepted, closer to regaining the pride lost by his mother.

But he doesn’t want to listen to the voice anymore. He’s tired of trying to be the proudest, noblest, most powerful and respected kitsune he can be. He just wants to go back up the mountain. He just wants to be able to go back to Yao. He…he doesn’t care about pride anymore.

The child is still staring at the ground. Kiku closes his eyes.

“I…I’ve been living here, by the grace of the dragon’s hospitality,” he begins slowly, digging his claws into the dirt. “But he forbade me from coming down to the forest without him, in case…in case the sorcerers were out. But I…I didn’t listen. _I was tired of listening to him. I was tired of everything._ So I came down. I thought it would be fine, that I could put on a glamour and go about undetected. But…you…you saw me.”

The child makes a hiccupping sound. Kiku looks up and sees that the boy is staring at him again. His eyes are looking red and watery once more, and the area around them is swelling with a blooming bruise that spreads up to his forehead. Kiku looks away again.

“I knew I’d be in a lot of trouble,” he continues, staring at the ground, “I…I thought I could use my powers to erase your memories, so no one would know. But, _but I’d never done it before, and_ it didn’t work. I hurt you instead.”

Kiku swallows, scuffing a paw across the dirt. “That…that thing. That ghoul. It said you were a witch, and that’s why you could see, and that you’d put a spell on everyone in the forest. And I… _I was such a fool_. It’s…its inexcusable.”

It really is. There is no way to explain away, or to justify, his actions today. There is nothing he can say that will ease the dragon’s anger, he’s certain of it. He’s explaining it to the human child because he asked. Because Kiku owes him an explanation at the very least, for all the damage he’s done. But there is no explanation he can give to Yao that can equate for all the mistakes he’s made. Nothing at all.

“He will never forgive me,” he whispers, _“I’ve broken his rules and dishonoured his authority. I…I will have to leave this place.”_

Finally, he raises his head to look at the child in front of him. The human child. Human or not, the boy did not deserve to be hurt like this.

“I’m sorry,” Kiku says, and he means it, “I’m so sorry.”

The child’s nose is still bleeding. He sniffles once.

Then he pitches forward into Kiku’s, smashing his face into his side while the young kitsune freezes in shock.

“I’m so sorry,” the boy says, voice muffled by Kiku’s fur, “ _That’s not fair_. It was an accident. I…I didn’t know you had a glamour on, I wouldn’t- I wouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry. I don’t, I don’t know how this works. I don’t know why my Sight is so good _._ I’m sorry, you shouldn’t have to _leave_ …s-stuff his authority. You’re just…you’re young like me, and we, we do that sometimes. We run off and make bad decisions and mistakes and get hurt. But we, he can’t _banish_ you that’s not _fair-,”_

His voice breaks off into a series of coughing hiccups that breaks down into full-blown sobs, the child’s body shaking and his tears dampening Kiku’s fur.

Kiku is speechless. He has remained frozen, first because he was completely caught off guard, and then because he was afraid of jostling the child, of accidentally hurting him again. But he is deeply, deeply uncomfortable with being touched. Even Mei’s innocent hand grabbing at his fur for support is too much, some days. He tries not to let anyone touch him. Not since…

Not since his mother’s clan killed his parents. Not since he was driven out of the small home they’d created for themselves. Not since the lesser youkai had stopped ignoring him and gleefully started tormenting him, grabbing at his fur and ears and pelting him with abuse as he ran as far as he could. A single thought echoing in his head over and over again. _If I don’t leave now, they will kill me._

Until he’d manage to grow a second tail, and gained enough power to protect himself. To get himself out of Japan.

He does not like to be touched.

He’s seen Yao pick up the little ones. He’s seen how gentle he is, how soft his touch is. How gently he strokes their fur and cradles them in his arms. But Kiku is a kitsune. And he doesn’t need…has never needed…

The child is so warm.

And Kiku can still feel it. The distant echo of the human’s feelings, travelling along whatever tenuous connection Kiku accidentally created. His regret and sorrow is genuine. He’s already forgiven Kiku for all the damage he’s done. He feels terrible about Kiku’s fate, and his tears are a result of that. Kiku remains stiff under the child’s touch, but he doesn’t push him away either.

The scent of the forest is everywhere- trees and loam and leaves and summer.

“Am, Am I doing that, or are you?” The child whispers, face still pressed to Kiku’s fur. “The…the…the feeling a bit of what you are, and stuff. I-I mean. I think I’ve done a little of that before, but not like magic. Mrs.- my friend’s mom says I have high empathy, but that it’s not really magic. It’s just something I have. This…this is stronger than that.”

So the child does feel it as well. “Yes,” Kiku admits quietly, “Yes, I believe this is also my fault.”

Finally, the child lifts his face. His eyes are dewy, though one of them is beginning to purple and swell. The blood has smeared across his face. He looks…terrible. But Kiku can feel it. The concern the child is feeling right now isn’t for himself, not at all.

“You’re so scared,” whispers the child, wiping at his face again, “Let me help. I can…I can tell the, the dragon that it was an accident. And that you didn’t really hurt me. And that it was all that…that…”

The child breaks off, eyes going glassy again. His breathing roughens, and he drops one hand to rub at his throat.

Kiku shakes his head. “You should go back home. Or back to…back to the sorcerers. The ones who protect you.”

The child’s expression blanks for a moment, then his lips begin trembling a little, like he’s going to cry again.

“They’re…they’re going to be upset,” he whines, “I’m not supposed to go into the forest without them. They’ll be so _upset_.”

His mouth twists into a pout and he looks down, at the blood on his hand from where he wiped at his face.

“But they’ll be upset because I got hurt,” he says quietly, “They’ll be upset that I went somewhere without them around to help me if I got in trouble. That’s…that’s not what it’s like with your dragon?”

He looks up at Kiku questioningly, and when Kiku doesn’t reply, the boy’s expression crumples.

“Right then,” he says swallowing, an action that looks painful. “Then I, then I have to go with you to explain what happened. I _have_ to.” His face sets stubbornly, determination painted across the blood and bruises.

Kiku hesitates.

He feels very strongly that this human child should not be out in the Wild like this. Not without magic and without protection. If he gets hurt again, it will be Kiku’s fault.

But…Kiku really dreads facing Yao’s anger alone. And he doesn’t want to leave this place. He so badly doesn’t want to be chased away again. Not again.

“O-okay,” he stammers, “I-if you’re…if you’re certain.”

The child nods his head firmly, and then winces.

He gets to his feet shakily, one hand still on Kiku’s back. Kiku still doesn’t know how he feels about the child touching him. About the way the child stumbles forward while leaning against him heavily. But…the little human is very warm, and the way his fingers are pushing through Kiku’s fur is very gentle.

“I’m Arthur,” says the boy, softly, “My name, I mean.”

Kiku looks at him once, and then looks away without reply.

The trees are rustling very softly now. Kiku’s not sure if they’re talking or not. He doesn’t think he wants to know what they’re saying if they are. He and Arthur continue forward, deeper into the forest, towards the mountain, and Kiku hopes that he’s not just making a bad situation worse.

They’re making their way very slowly through. The child, Arthur, is human and sluggish. And also hurt. He uses one hand to rub at his throat frequently, and winces every so often, both his nose and eye continue to swell. And Kiku’s sides are stinging, the slashes from the ghoul aching in the heat. He also has a very bad headache; he’s never used his power so much in such a short amount of time. Neither of them are moving very fast.

They’re still in the forest, still far from the mountain, when Kiku smells brimstone in the air.

He stops abruptly, and Arthur stumbles against him, making a soft and surprised sound. Kiku doesn’t have a chance to second-guess his decision, to question whether or not bringing the child along was smart. Because in between one blink and another, Yao is standing before them.

Kiku had half expected Yao to appear in his dragon form in his anger, or something close to it. But he is perfectly human in appearance. His eyes are more brown then gold, his skin is devoid of the suggestion of scales, and he is bristling with neither teeth nor claws.

But the weight of his power is still heavy in the air, the smell of brimstone persistent. The trees are silent. There is no rustling in the grass, no light crackling and crunching of creatures making their way through the underbrush. Everything is still- with anticipation, with ingrained respect. Even the breeze has fallen flat.

Kiku can only distantly feel the child’s hand, tightening in his fur. His body, his thoughts; they have both frozen, absolutely. His words fail him; his explanations and excuses fail him. The hazy afternoon light blurs and fades until there is nothing left but the dragon before him, staring with lips pressed into a thin line.

“Kiku,” Yao says, voice muted. Kiku feels his body begin to shake. He hears the human child suck in a breath beside him.

“A-a-a-are you,” the boy’s voice is hoarse and shaky, and he coughs once. “Are you th-the d- the dragon?”

Yao’s eyes widen just a little, gold glinting in their depths. His gaze is slow in its slide away from Kiku towards the child, and something in his expression flickers. The thin, disapproving line of his lips twists into something else, momentarily.

There is a moment of silence, where Yao looks at Arthur and Arthur shrinks down, pressing himself closer to Kiku’s side. The boy’s mouth works uselessly for a few seconds, before he coughs again, half-strangled throat sore and aggravated.

Something softens in Yao’s expression, and he closes his eyes briefly for a moment, before opening them. They are completely brown again.

“What happened to your face, child?” Yao asks quietly, gently.

The question seems to surprise Arthur, who blinks rapidly, before pressing himself closer to Kiku’s side.

“Th-the- he-, K-kiku protected me,” he stammers, tongue tripping over Kiku’s name. “There was a ghoul, a-a-and it thought I was a w-witch and w-wanted to eat me, a-and K-Kiku’s been p-protecting me this _whole_ time. S-so don’t b-be m-mad at him f-for talking to me, p-please…”

 _Don’t lie for me,_ Kiku wants to say, _don’t make him angry with you as well._ But his tongue is leaden in his mouth. His fear still has him frozen.

“I don’t believe you are supposed to be in this forest alone,” Yao continues, not addressing the points about Kiku at all. “It is probably best that you go home.”

Arthur quails back for a half second, before forcing himself to straighten, raising his shaking body up and lifting his chin.

“Y-you c-can’t p-punish Kiku, okay?” He says, tone stubborn, even as his voice shakes, “I-it was m-my fault. I-I-I shouldn’t have been able to see him, but I did, a-and that’s because of me, not him. A-a-and he fought the thing that was attacking me, and got hurt and everything. And he is very scared and very sad and I think that’s _awful._ P-please don’t send him away because of me. P-please don’t banish him.”

Yao’s mouth twists again, and the skin around his eyes tautens. His gaze snaps back towards Kiku, who flinches and drops his eyes to the ground. Kiku hears Yao exhale heavily, and he digs his paws into the earth, eyes burning.

“Child,” Yao says, voice taut, “I have no intention of-,”

Yao stops talking abruptly. The suddenness of it makes Kiku look up, and he sees that Yao is no longer looking at them, but behind them, his eyes bright gold.

“Kiku,” he says tightly, “Come-,”

A semi-familiar scent carries forward on the breeze at the same time as Kiku hears a branch crack behind him. He jumps, but manages to control his movement, turning slowly instead of whirling around in order to accommodate the child still attached to his side. The scent of smoke and chalk and iron and copper and something a little darker swirls in his nostrils, as a figure moves out from behind the trees.

It is a human man, or a human-looking man. With brown hair and round glasses that would make him look perfectly ordinary and unassuming. If not for the light dance of magic snaking through his fingers. If not for the heady scent of ritual that clings to him. If not for the dance of red fire in his eyes.

Kiku knows immediately, without a doubt, that this is one of the sorcerers.

Kiku is struck, suddenly, of how young and inexperienced he is, to have thought the brown-haired child from earlier was a sorcerer, just for the slight smell of smoke that clung to him. How could he have though a sorcerer, someone whose presence stopped Yao from entering the forest he protected, would be so weak and small? The crackle of power around the man in front of him is unignorable. It snaps through the air like a whip.

“ _Oh,_ ” Arthur breathes out, something wistful and reverent in his tone, “Mr. Dragomir!”

Arthur stumbles forward a step, but then looks at Kiku, expression troubled. The hand in his fur tightens a little, and Kiku feels something completely bizarre; a wave of protective affection, washing over him from Arthur.

Behind them, Kiku hears Yao exhale, low in his throat, like a growl.

The sorcerer’s eyes are looking at neither child, but are fixed behind them. Kiku looks tentatively over his shoulder, and sees that Yao’s eyes, gold and slitted, are locked with the man’s. Neither of them is moving. Neither of them has addressed each other. Kiku is acutely aware that he and Arthur are standing between two extremely powerful beings who are both, in their own way, trespassing in each other’s territory.

“Arthur,” the sorcerer says tersely, “Come here. Come away from them, please.”  
“Kiku,” Yao says, his voice sharp, “来て.”

Kiku stiffens, the cold wash of fear that crashes into him locking him in place. The sheer _terror_ that cascades through him, hearing that sharp, commanding tone in Yao’s voice. Arthur must feel it too, because he gasps a little, and presses himself closer, looping one arm over Kiku’s neck.

“Mr. Dragomir, _please,_ ” he whines, “He… _Kiku,_ he protected me. He, he’s my friend. And he’s very scared he’s going to get in trouble and that the dragon is going to punish him and send him away because he wasn’t supposed to talk to me but it wasn’t his _fault,_ it-,”

Arthur’s voice cuts out, hoarse and weak, and he sucks in a dry, painful sounding breath.

The stern, carefully blank expression the sorcerer’s been wearing shatters, and he takes a few steps towards them, hands outstretched. At the same time, behind them, Yao inhales sharply, and Kiku turns to see him step closer as well, looking at Kiku with an expression he can’t recognize or understand.

When the dragon moves, the sorcerer freezes, and his expression smoothes over again, hands slowly closing into fists at his side. The air fills with the smell of ozone.

“Arthur, please come here,” he says, quieter, “You’re hurt. You can’t-, you must let him be.”

“But we have to protect him,” Arthur whimpers, head resting in Kiku’s fur.

It’s nearly unbearable to Kiku, how much this child, this human child, doesn’t want him to go away. What has Kiku done to deserve this? Attacked him? Nearly gotten him killed? And now he’s drawn out one of the sorcerers. The only thing dangerous enough to keep Yao away from the forest. And he’s _aggravating_ the sorcerer, by keeping this human child, by keeping Arthur at his side, when the man so clearly wants to pull the child away to safety. Once again, _once more,_ Kiku is ruining everything.

“Child.”

Arthur jumps again, and he turns his head a little. Trying to see both the sorcerer, who is sparking with red magic, and Yao, who has just spoken.

“Child,” Yao’s voice is very soft, his eyes a softer amber tone, “Kiku does not need protection from me. I would never, _never_ harm him. He is one of my own, one of my siblings, and I would never drive him from this place. Do you believe me?”

Arthur’s expression remains stubborn, as he stares at Yao. Then, slowly, it begins to soften into something more uncertain. He blinks, then blinks again. He looks at Kiku, then back at Yao, then back at Kiku. His eyes are a little unfocused, but they are also very, very green.

“…Maybe,” Arthur says quietly, “You’re…everything is very gold around you…your eyes and scales and everything…and it’s not…that’s not a…I don’t think you’re lying.”

Kiku looks at Yao. He still looks perfectly human. His eyes are a little closer to gold the brown, but there are no golden scales in sight. And Kiku cannot really see Yao’s aura. Just the impression of heat and power, as always.

 _What human child,_ Kiku thinks wondrously, _can see through the glamour of a dragon?_

The sorcerer exhales heavily, and Yao’s eyes flicker upwards to meet his. They stare at each other for a long, tight moment.

“Kiku,” Arthur whispers suddenly, turning to press his face to the fur by his ears, “I think he’s telling the truth. I think you may have been wrong. I think he’ll only be mad like Mr. Dragomir is. Mad that you went somewhere he couldn’t protect you. I think he loves you very much, Kiku. So please, don’t be afraid anymore.”

He pulls back a little, and then stops, looking at Kiku with one hand still on his shoulder.

 _Waiting for me to tell him it’s okay,_ Kiku realizes, stomach twinging with guilt, _He doesn’t want to leave with the sorcerer until he’s certain I’m not afraid._

And so, Kiku tries to will himself, tries to make himself believe Arthur’s words, Yao’s words, enough that he can send something like reassurance towards the child.

He doesn’t know if it works, but after a few seconds, Arthur steps away from him. For the first time in what feels like forever, his hand drops away from Kiku’s fur. Then he turns and stumbles towards the sorcerer, who rushes forward and scoops him into his arms. The man’s expression when Arthur loops his arms around his neck and rests his bruised, bloody face on his shoulder is agonized.

 _They’ll be upset, but they’ll be upset that I went somewhere without them around to help me if I got in trouble._ Arthur, it seems, was right about that. And Kiku feels suddenly, unbearably alone.

The sorcerer tears his gaze away from Arthur with what looks like considerable difficulty, exchanging one last, long look with Yao. It looks like he wants to say something, very badly, but instead he presses his lips into a thin line and moves backwards a few steps. Then he turns and disappears with Arthur into the trees.

Kiku and Yao are left alone.

In an instant, all of the fear he’d been suppressing rushes back into Kiku in a flood. His knees go weak again, and his mouth dries. He is distantly aware of his legs shaking, of his entire body shaking.

“Kiku,” Yao’s voice is soft. Even softer than before. Kiku is still afraid.

But he makes himself turn around. One step at a time, a slow, measured out turn, his tails dragging on the ground. The cuts he got from the ghoul are aching. His chest hurts. It is entirely possible, he thinks, that his heart may give out before Yao has the chance to do anything to him at all.

Finally, he is facing the dragon. His tails are still on the ground. His head is as low as he can get it. He is still shaking. He is facing Yao, but he can’t make himself lift his eyes to look at his face. Now that the sorcerer is gone, now that Arthur is gone, who knows what expression he will find there?

 _“Kiku,_ ” the tone in Yao’s voice is unlike anything Kiku’s ever heard. It sounds… _hurt,_ almost _desperate._ Kiku has no idea what to make of it. He keeps his eyes on the ground.

“You’re really that scared of me,” Yao whispers, voice still oddly strained, “Kiku, you really believe I’d hurt you? You really believe I’d drive you away?”

Kiku’s head jerks up a little, but he keeps it turned to the side, trying to get his breathing under control. The dragon asked him a direct question. He _has_ to answer it. He does not want to make his situation any worse.

“I-I-I’m sorry,” he stammers, cursing his tongue for being so leaden in his mouth, “Th-the s-s-s-, what the child told you, w-was not, not entirely, the, the truth. What, what truly happened was, it was-,”

The words are trying to flee from him, they won’t come. Every part of him is aching. But standing here, uncertain and afraid, is worse than anything.

Kiku takes a deep breath.

He switches to his telepathy, and tells Yao everything.

He tells him everything that’s happened, everything that he’s done since he first came down the mountain. From disobeying Yao by coming into the forest, from being seen by the child, from being deceived by the ghoul and hurting the child by accident, and then leading the child into the ghoul’s claws…

His eyes are stinging by the time he’s finished. He has not cried since-, he does not remember the last time he cried. He is not going to cry now. He is better than that. And whatever is coming, he deserves it.

“ _So it is well within your rights to punish me, and to make me leave,_ ” he finishes, steadying his voice at last, _“I disrespected your authority, and I, I endangered-,”_

“Kiku, that’s-,” Yao’s voice cracks as he interrupts, and Kiku’s head jerks upwards in surprise.

The dragon’s face, the face of his human mask, is pinched and red. But he doesn’t look angry. He looks…

If Yao weren’t an ancient, four thousand year old dragon, Kiku would say he looked like he was about to cry.

“ _Kiku,_ you are a _child,_ ” Yao says, his voice rough, “You are a child and you are under my care. Do not-, don’t speak to me as if I’m above you. As if I’m your master. I am _not._ This place…it is not some territory that I lord over. It is a place I am trying to keep safe. For humans, and for youkai, and for _you._ You made several mistakes and they had bad consequences, consequences that could have been much, much worse, and Kiku, that is something we will have to talk about. But you are a child, you are _eight years old,_ and I am not, I would _never-,”_

Yao inhales sharply, and blinks a few times, rapidly. If Kiku didn’t know better, he’d say he was blinking back tears.

“This is not Japan, Kiku,” he says, quietly, “I am not the kitsune of your mother’s clan. I will not abandon you. I will not drive you away. I will not hurt you. I _promise_ you this. I have left you alone because you desired it. Because I know how you feel about my attempts to act more human, to be able to walk among them. But Kiku, it is not because I don’t care about you. I care about you as I care about the others. You didn’t know that, did you? You are my own, as they are. The home we built is for you as well, if you ever want it. And if you don’t, then the mountain is yours as it is theirs. I would _never_ make you leave it.”

Kiku feels as if he’s not hearing correctly. He _can’t_ be hearing correctly.

 _“You…you’re not going to banish me?”_ he asks, in a small voice, _“And you’re not going to ki-,”_

He makes himself stop. Cuts himself off. But Yao hears the word anyways, and his entire expression crumples; he looks heartbroken.

“Oh, Kiku,” he whispers, “Kiku, just what do you think of me?”

Kiku looks at his feet.

When he first met Yao, he’d been full of disappointment, followed by contempt. _This_ was the dragon he’d heard of? The last living dragon anyone knew about? The one going out of his way to help displaced youkai children? And he was parading around as a human? Like he had no pride?

When he’d moved to America with them, to these mountains, his contempt had turned to bewilderment. Yao _was_ a dragon. Now that he was settled into a territory of his own he exuded an aura that was unignorable. It was what kept undesirables away from the forest and valley. But he was also…so strangely un-aloof. He was a youkai lord, nearer to a god then to anything mortal, but he spoke casually to the common spirits and sprites. He was friends with a mostly-human djinn, and he did not dismiss creatures who came to him for help, and he did not hate humans.

And the _children._ Yao and his children. He cuddled them and coddled them and laughed with them and tickled them and held them so tenderly when they cried that Kiku had to look away, every time. He sang to them and told them stories and let them clamber all over him, and tug at his hair and pull at his cheeks like he was a plaything rather than an ancient deity.

He’s never been like that with Kiku. He’s always been respectful, more distant. He taught Kiku how to read and write. He sat with him under the stars and showed him the shapes you could find there. He smiled at Kiku gently, and kindly. Kinder than anyone’s ever looked at him before.

Yao is a dragon. Whatever skin or glamour he may wear, that fact is undeniable. He is old, and powerful, and even the proud kitsune of Japan would feel obliged to bow their heads to him.

But, he is also the surrogate big brother to a host of half-human children. And it might be, Kiku thinks, that that is more important to him. That for Yao, that is more important than any status being a dragon would bring him.

Kiku’s having some difficulty wrapping his head around it. In Japan, it’s the exact opposite. Honour and status comes before _everything._

 _But you are not in Japan anymore,_ he thinks, suddenly, _You have not been in Japan for a long time._

Perhaps the answer is this; any other dragon would have punished Kiku, driven him away, killed him. Any other dragon would have been outraged. Any other dragon would have been furious.

But Yao is not like other dragons. He is the _only_ dragon. And in all the time Kiku’ s known him, all he has cared about is protecting his children. And Kiku knew that earlier too, he did know it. It was part of the reason he was so afraid. By letting the child see him, he’d endangered Yao’s children, Yao’s family…

What Yao is telling him now, the thing that Kiku can’t quite wrap his head around, is that Yao considers _Kiku_ to be his family as well.

 _“I…I know you’re not…”_ His eyes are still burning dangerously. _“But I didn’t think…”_

Yao’s still looking at him, face scrunched strangely. Then, slowly, he lowers himself down, so that he’s crouched low, nearly kneeling, and just about at eye level with Kiku.

“Kiku,” Yao says, “Will you come here?”

Despite everything, a rush of fear still surges through him. But Kiku does his best to steel his trembling, and walks forward towards Yao, tails still dragging along the ground.

He stops a step in front of the dragon, and stands nervously. Yao still looks so sad.

“Kiku,” he says, “Is it alright if I touch you? You’ve never seemed like you’d permit it, and I’ve never asked. But I’m asking now. And Kiku, you have every right to say no. I have _no right_ over you. Please understand that.”

Kiku’s not certain he understands anything anymore. But he ducks his head for a moment, looking down between his paws.

When others touch him it’s always painful. Hitting, things thrown, _himself_ being thrown, especially in disastrous encounters with other kitsune. He’s never been touched kindly.

Except for today. Arthur was gentle. The human child, who had every reason to hate him, hadn’t hurt him at all. Warm, like his eyes and his aura and everything about him.

Kiku shifts around on his feet. He doesn’t want to disappoint Yao again. _“…Yes, it’s fine.”_

Yao blows out a breath, “Kiku, are you sure?”

He is not _. “Yes,”_ Kiku repeats, “ _Yes, it’s alright.”_

Kiku tries not to flinch away as he feels Yao shuffle closer. As he feels his arms come down and…

Embrace him.

Yao wraps his arms around him and just…holds him against his chest gently. Just holds him. Not tightly. Not…not like he’s trying to hurt him. Just holds him. Just…just hugs him. The way he does the halflings. The way he does his siblings.

“You are _dear_ to me, Kiku,” Yao says, fervent, “And the only ones I wish to punish are the ones who made you so afraid. You did not deserve what happened to you in Japan. You did nothing wrong, and neither did your parents. Their love was not a mistake, and neither are you. You are clever and you are kinder than you think yourself to be. Mei adores you and Yong Soo admires you and Lei and Xiang look up to you. Linh cares for you and Tai is always worrying about you. And you are _dear_ to me, Kiku. We are always ready for you to come to us. Whenever you’re ready, our home is yours as well.”

Kiku is frozen. Once again, his mind is a whirlwind of incomprehension. He’s always so cold and aloof to the others, they can’t _possibly_ like him. He spurred them all at every possible turn, he was so prideful and looked down on them…it’s only, it’s only been recently that…

The images spring unbidden to his mind. Mei twirling in circles in front of him, fire in her hair, laughing gleefully. Yong Soo trying to race him, dripping over his own oversized paws. Xiang following him silently, sucking on a thumb. Lei blowing smoke rings, trying to impress Kiku with their size. Linh sitting beside him silently, looking peaceful and content. Tai’s sad face every time Kiku declined to go into the house he’d made.

Then an entirely different set of memories descends upon him.

His father, so sad, but never unkind. Letting Kiku curl up between his paws. Telling him stories of kindness and love. His mother, so proud, so strong. Looking down at him like he was something beautiful, something worth wanting, something worth dying for, and something worth living for.

And just like that, Kiku begins to cry.

He rests his head on Yao’s shoulder, and begins to cry. His entire body shakes- he can’t help it. He feels like he’s coming apart at the seams. His wounds hurt. His head and chest are aching. He wants to feel ashamed but all he can feel is Yao running his hand comfortingly up and down his back, murmuring soft words in Mandarin in his ears. Kiku feels hyper aware of everything. His magic is thrumming through him, his tails are aching again. It feels like when he was first chased away, but at the same time, nothing like that. It hurts, but it feels warm. It feels safe.

 _“I don’t want to leave,”_ Kiku says, even his mental voice heavy with tears _, “I want to stay here, with you. I want to stay with you.”_

“ _Of course,”_ Yao says, hugging him just a bit tighter. “Of course, Kiku. Let’s go home.”

Kiku’s breath catches in his throat, and as Yao begins to pull away he makes a sad sound, completely by accident. Yao freezes, and Kiku immediately ducks his head, embarrassed.

But then Yao lifts him up, easily. Holds him in both of his arms, still smoothing one hand down the fur on Kiku’s back. Then his hand stills, suddenly, and Kiku hears him inhale sharply.

“Kiku,” Yao says softly, “You…”

 _“I know,”_ Kiku answers quickly, _“I…that’s why I said…I still want to stay. Can I please stay? Even though…”_

“Yes, Kiku, always,” Yao answers immediately. “For as long as you want to.”

Kiku sniffles and buries his face in Yao’s neck. It’s warm, and smells like brimstone and molten heat. It’s not soft, like human skin is. It’s hard, like a dragon’s scales.

Yao begins walking then, back towards the mountain, towards their home. And though the idea of faking being human still unsettles Kiku, still discomforts him, he thinks of Arthur, and the idea doesn’t fill him with the revulsion it did before. Perhaps he will even enter that house, for the first time. Maybe.

He relaxes against Yao’s chest and closes his eyes. His three tails- one present at birth, one grown in a desperate bid to save himself from his mother’s clan, and one grown just now, curl over Yao’s arm, shining white in the late afternoon light.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this...this counts as like...ten chapters. I mean usually chapters are around 2,000 words and this was well over 20,000 words so...yeah it counts as like...ten chapters. ten. ten whole chapters. 
> 
> Kiku considering you're one of the most non-verbal characters in Hetalia you sure had a wordy damn chapter. good grief. 
> 
> but, for many reasons, this was a very important chapter, and I didn't want to cut it short. I wanted to get everything out in one go. Hope you guys enjoyed it regardless of the ungodly length. 
> 
> I'm very tired. I hope...I mean, editing it this was...eh. Hopefully I caught everything. I'll give another peruse in the morning.


	18. Alfred (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the waaaaaaait. Thank you for your comments and continued support!

No one ever believes Alfred when he says that he’s a morning person.

He thinks it’s just unwarranted bias. What, just because he’s a teenager he can’t be up before noon? Totally prejudiced accusations based upon dumb stereotypes. It’s _offensive._

Because he _is_ a morning person. Totally one hundred percent. There’s nothing better than being up before dawn, getting outside, and watching the sun’s rays paint his father’s fields with orange and pink-hued gold. The early morning chill, the trill of bird song, echoing through the distant forest and beyond to the towering mountain standing over the town. The smell of dew, clean and like newness, saturating everything. People always tell him, _Alfred, dew doesn’t have a smell,_ but it does! It smells damp and also new and like grass and freshly tilled soil and a little bit like everything at once.

 _Arthur_ agrees with him, thinks that dew and the morning have a smell. Sometimes Alfred will be awake, looking out his window, or getting an early start on his chores in the barns, and he’ll see Arthur making his way through the fields. The wheat or the long grass parting before him, and the dim, rosy light silhouetting his form. It’ll be a mystery, whether he’s up early like Alfred or if he’s just been out all night, but Alfred won’t bother asking. It doesn’t matter either way, in the end.

Whether Alfred’s there or not, Arthur will head for the barns first, to say hello to Freedom and Liberty. If Alfred _is_ there, he gets to see Arthur with his face entirely open and unguarded. Relaxed, happy, and talking in full sentences to the horses as he cards his fingers through their manes. He might have bruises on his face and arms. He’ll probably have bags under his eyes. But he’ll look happy. He’ll ignore Alfred until he’s said hello to the horses, but it’s something, it’s important, that he trusts Alfred enough to let him see him as he’s open and engaging with the things he loves. Nature, animals, and a newly dawning day away from the busy town. Away from people.

Alfred loves mornings. He loves the quiet. He loves the smells. He loves the colours of the sky and the field and the way everything in the air feels weighty with something immense and infinite. Something bigger than him and everything in his world. He loves when Arthur comes by in the morning. He loves when they walk through the fields together, the sound of the wind rustling all around them. And he loves climbing up to onto the roof, so they can watch the sun fully rise together. It is, maybe, Alfred’s very favourite thing about mornings. Sitting on his roof, Arthur beside him, staring out at the newly dawning, golden world, the sun rising over the town and valley that they both call home.

Arthur isn’t here this morning though.

He doesn’t turn up as Alfred’s feeding Freedom and Liberty. Or when Alfred leads them out to walk them around their pasture. The sun finishes rising above the horizon, and Alfred guesses that Arthur’s not coming today.

He’s disappointed, pouting through his morning chores, but it’s not like Arthur comes _every_ day. He doesn’t. He comes when he wants to and he comes when he has time and he comes when he’s not starting the day doing whatever it is that he and Niels and Dani get up to in the forest. But he has been coming more often lately. Alfred’s kind of gotten used to waking up and starting his days with Arthur beside him.

Aaaaand that kind of had connotations that he didn’t mean to imply in the slightest. Not at all! He and Arthur are just best buds and best friends and super close in a way that is friendly and full of friendship and friendness. That’s it. That’s all… _Really._

Even without Arthur, it’s a nice morning, and a nice day. The sky is clear, the sun’s already bright and blazing, and the weather app on his phone is saying that it’s going to be a _scorcher._ Which isn’t that surprising, considering it’s July in California.

It’s summer _at last_ , it’s July, it’s hot and beautiful and he’s _finally_ sixteen.

He’s finally sixteen!

It might be just, you know, popular culture or whatever. But Alfred feels about twenty times older now that he’s sixteen. He feels like he’s finally crossed the point where people will stop treating him like a total baby, and will start treating him like someone who’s actually almost an adult, and also halfway mature and totally capable of responsibility and-

_Oh crap._

He forgot again. He forgot to water the plant _again._

You’d think it’d be easy to remember to water a plant that’s in his _room._ But nope, he keeps forgetting. It keeps slipping his mind and if he kills the plant Arthur gave him for his birthday that would be the worst, the literal _worst_ thing he could do. Ever. For the entirety of his existence, past and future. Arthur would _never_ forgive him.

He’s finished his chores by now, so Alfred takes off his boots and heads back into the house. He can hear his dad in the kitchen, making coffee, or trying to, on their old, less-then functional coffee pot. He pops in his head to say morning, before heading up the stairs, his dad’s grunting response behind him.

His dad, unlike Alfred, is _not_ a morning person. Sometimes Alfred teases that the only reason he adopted in the first place was to get out of having to get up early to do all the work necessary to keep a farm running. His dad had snorted and said he’d have adopted two of him if that had been the case.

Alfred had looked at his dad suspiciously for the first few months after Mattie showed up in town, but ultimately decided that it was _probably_ a coincidence. Probably.

Mattie’s birthday is _apparently_ a few days before Alfred’s. Which he doesn’t believe in the _slightest._ They are clearly twins! Both of them adopted, both of them the same age, and both of them practically identical. He doesn’t understand why Mattie’s so skeptical. Alfred bets it’s because he doesn’t want to it to be proven that he’s not _actually_ older than Alfred by a few days.

For his birthday, Alfred got Mattie a copy of his favourite comic book series translated into French, which he’d really, really liked. Mattie got Alfred an American flag-patterned blanket for Freedom, and a blanket that had the entire American constitution printed across it for Liberty. Alfred had totally _not_ squealed when he’d seen them. It’s just. It was really cool! He knows his patriotism is pretty ironic considering his birthday, but he just honestly really _loves_ what America stands for. Freedom, liberty, democracy, fireworks…

This year, he’d finally convinced his dad to let him skip the family-friendly firework show in front of City Hall, and go to the later, unofficial one run by the seniors from the highschool, with suspiciously procured fireworks. It hadn’t been as fun as he’d hoped, more smoking and drinking then he’d liked, and he’d ended up ditching early. So instead of fireworks he’d sat inside and watched Independence Day with Matthew and Kiku. Which was still a pretty great way to spend his birthday. His dad had even let them crack open a beer each, though it tasted a lot worse than any of them expected and none of them had finished. Not that Alfred would _ever_ admit that if asked.

The watering can Arthur got him is sitting just outside his bedroom door, and Alfred grabs it, carrying it into the bathroom to fill it with water. Arthur says it’s better to use rain water, to leave cans outside to collect it. But it hasn’t rained in awhile, and also, his dad’s big against leaving standing water around the house, or the barn. _Mosquitoes, Alfred,_ he says sternly, _Those horses are testy enough without throwing bug bites into the equation._

Alfred doesn’t think that Freedom and Liberty are testy. They’re not your standard horses, it’s true, and they’re not entirely _tame,_ but they’re not dangerous wild stallions either. He guesses his dad’s still just a little wary of them, since he didn’t buy them, or even catch them. They just sort of wandered on to the property one day and didn’t…leave. Alfred had always wanted horses when he was little, especially since they already had a barn that they didn’t use for anything, and his dad had told him stories of having a horse when he was a child. But his dad wasn’t willing to invest in one, or add caring for one onto his already hefty list of farm duties.

But then Freedom and Liberty had just. Walked in. Milled around the house, poked about the barn, and evaded all efforts to shoo them away. Inquiries around the county revealed no reports of escaped or stolen horses. They really had just appeared out of nowhere.

Alfred thought it was the luckiest thing in the world, and also, fate. _Can’t ignore fate, Dad!_ He’d said. Dad hadn’t really been convinced.

But the tenacity of both Alfred and the horses had won out in the end, and Dad had gotten some help fixing up the barns and clearing out an area for pasture. The money had been a bit of an issue, but living in a small town had paid off. Mr. Vargas and Mr. Beilshcmidt had both chipped in a little money. Even Rajni had. And Alfred had promised to get a job as soon as he could to help out.

Now that he’s sixteen that might actually be a thing he has to do. _Crap._ A job?....He can totally manage that! In the summer, at least. He only has to look after the horses in the summer. Once school starts it’ll be harder, with all his homework and stuff. But Alfred’s _old_ now. He’s _responsible._ So he can totally stay on top of-

He’s forgotten about the plant again.

It’s small, sitting in a pot on the desk by his window. What’s it called again? Marge…jam? Marge… _Marjoram._ That’s what it is. For dispelling negativity and stuff. It smells very nice. Like mint or oregano or something in between. It’s very pretty and very green and Alfred will feel _soooo_ bad if he accidentally kills it.

None of its leaves seem to be going brown just yet, so he figures he’s still safe. He’s careful as he pours water into the pot, since drowning plants is also possible, apparently. _Jeez._ Who knew gardening was so stressful?

With _all_ of his morning responsibilities covered and accounted for, Alfred heads into the shower. His stomach’s growling the entire time, and he practically sprints down the stairs once he’s finished and dressed. His dad’s gone, probably out into the fields, but there are some eggs sitting on a plate for him, and a cup of orange juice.

Alfred’s dad is kind of awesome. He’s got one of those personalities that make him seem like he’s always grumpy, but he’s not. Alfred’s pretty sure he’s got the best dad _ever._

Not that he has a lot to compare it to, now that he thinks about it. Francis is Mattie’s older brother, and Matthew met Francis’s parents _once._ Kiku’s parents are dead. Yong Soo and the rest of their siblings never _knew_ their parents. Arthur’s parents are terrible to him. Feliciano and Ludwig are both being raised by their grandfathers…

Okay so…their town might have like, a _thing_ with absent parentage in general. Oh, but Matthias! Matthias lives alone with his dad as well. But his dad’s the _mayor._ Which means he’s probably always busy with…political things.

He wonders what Matthias is doing today. Probably bothering Niels. Alfred and Matthias used to hang out a lot, but they haven’t as much, in the past year or so. Matthias has been hanging around Niels more often, and Alfred…well, Alfred guesses that he’s been spending more time with Arthur as well.

He wonders what Arthur’s doing today. He hopes it’s not something that’s going to leave him with bruises and scratches all over. He hopes it’s something fun and happy. Or, at the very least, non-hazardous.

Alfred pops some bread into the toaster, and then discovers that they’re out of butter. And also out of milk. Darn it. He likes his morning cocoa.

But it’s a nice day. It’s a _beautiful_ day, actually. So Alfred decides that, even though he doesn’t have any plans to meet anyone today, he’ll ride into town on his bike and do some groceries and maybe see if there’s anyone around who wants to hang out or something. It’s too nice of a day to stay inside any longer, anyways.

As soon as he finishes his breakfast and cleans up, he heads out. His bike’s against the side of the house, and he wheels it down the dusty, long lane that leads from their house to the road. He doesn’t leave a note for his dad or anything, he’s fine with not knowing exactly where his son is at every moment. Alfred won’t bother him as he’s working.

It’s still morning, but the sun’s already blazing. The air blowing past him as he rides is dry, and dusty. Alfred wishes he brought a water bottle or something with him, though he reasons that he can just pick one up from the grocery store once he gets there.

It doesn’t take long to ride into town, but there’s dust in his mouth and he’s sweating buckets, so he slows down to take a short break, stopping at a tiny convenience store by the side of the road. The one that closes down every two months and then miraculously reopens a week later.

The store has a flimsy awning, riddled with holes, and Alfred wheels his bike underneath it. There’s a little wood block off to the side that’s good to sit on, but it’s already occupied. Emil and Xiang are sharing it, tucked in the shade.

It’s not unusual to see Xiang out this early. All of Kiku’s family are early risers, and Alfred’s sure that Mei and Lei are probably somewhere nearby as well. The triplets have very different personalities, but they also tend to travel around as a unit. Maybe the two of them are inside?

Alfred’s not sure about Emil. Arthur says that Niels isn’t a morning person, at all, but who knows if Emil’s the same? Sometimes Alfred sees him this early, and sometimes he sees him late at night. It just depends on the day. When it comes down to it, he doesn’t know Emil very well at all.

“Hey!” Alfred calls out in greeting as he leans his bike against the wall of the shop. Both Xiang and Emil look towards him. They’ve both got their standard blank expressions, but Xiang waves one hand in a passive, wordless greeting.

“Hey Alfred,” Emil says after a few moments of awkward silence, “Um, morning?”

“Congrats,” Xiang drawls, hand still raised, “On completing another year on this planet. Well done.” He then begins to clap, still blank-faced, and beside him Emil presses his palm to his face in embarrassment.

Alfred doesn’t know Emil and Xiang very well, but he’s still amused by their friendship. Relationship? He’s not sure. They’re a lot younger than him, so he’s never paid them much attention, but he does have vague memories of them _always_ being together. He distinctly remembers them holding hands a lot when they were little, though he can’t recall them doing it anytime recently. Dating, or no? They’re clearly close, but he honestly has no clue as to the nature of that closeness. It’s funny either way, though. At first glance, they have really similar personalities. Quiet, stoic, prone to staring at you blankly. But Xiang’s actually a lot more outgoing then Emil is, and is prone to indulging in the kind of silliness and nonsense that Emil won’t stand to suffer from anyone else.

Alfred thinks they’re adorable. It’d be cute if they _were_ dating.

“Haha, thanks Xiang,” Alfred laughs, “Didn’t you just have a birthday too? Congrats to you as well!”

A slow smile spreads across Xiang’s face, and he shrugs wordlessly. Emil sighs.

“He set off fireworks inside the house, and lit the tablecloths on fire,” he says flatly, “We ate the cake outside to get away from the smoke inhalation.”

“It was hilarious,” Xiang adds, seeming more smug than chastised, and Emil gives him an unimpressed look. Xiang responds by fluttering his eyelashes in fake bashfulness, which makes Emil blush, and look away immediately.

It’s always fun to watch their interaction, but something awkward twists in Alfred’s stomach all the same. Xiang’s birthday party would have been at his house, up on the mountain. The house Alfred’s _never_ been allowed to visit. He’s pals with Yong Soo, best friends with Kiku, and has even tutored Mei. But he’s _never_ been allowed to hang out at their house. Not _once._

They all get weird when he asks. Kiku gets evasive and Mei gets flustered and Yong Soo gets nervous. He knows that _people_ aren’t allowed up at Yao’s house. He knows they’re very private and live up on the mountain for a reason. But he also knows that _friends_ are allowed to go. Arthur goes up there, and so does Emil, and even Niels and Danut have been to Yao’s house, and they’re not even really _friends_ with any of them.

It just. He doesn’t get it, is all. Alfred can’t help but wonder what it is, exactly, that he’s doing wrong. That makes Kiku and Yong Soo think they can’t trust him to go up to their house. Is it because he’s loud? He knows he’s loud. Okay, yeah, he can be a bit clumsy. Is their house full of priceless heirlooms or something? Maybe that’s it…

He says goodbye to Emil and Xiang and continues on his ride through town. It’s getting hotter, and he’s still thirsty.

 _The grocery store’s not that far up the road, Alfred!_ He tells himself. But he hasn’t had his cocoa this morning, and as he nears the Edelstein’s cakeshop, the smell of chocolate and sugar is too enticing to resist.

He leans his bike against the side of the building and walks in. It’s fairly busy. The bakery may be, well, a bakery, but its primary function in the town is that of a coffee shop. A lot of people still brew at home, like Alfred’s dad, but there are a lot of people who prefer to come here instead.

Elizabeta’s at the counter, her hair pinned up in a bun and her face a mask of ineffectually concealed exasperation. The older man who’s trying to order apparently doesn’t know the difference between a latte and a cappuccino, and is unsatisfied with Elizabeta’s attempts to explain.

Gilbert’s in the corner, chatting animatedly to Francis, who is idly tapping his fingers against the table while looking amusedly listening to Gilbert’s wildly flailing hands and loud exclamations. He looks up as Alfred enters the shop, and waves him over with an easy movement of his hand.

“Good morning, Alfred. Matthew’s at home,” Francis says, sounding apologetic, “Not the early riser you are, I’m afraid.”

“Uh, last I checked, neither are you,” Alfred replies, one eyebrow raised as he sits down at the table. “What are you doing up this early? Don’t you need sleep to hide your wrinkles or something?”

Francis’s expression twitches. Gilbert snorts, and then starts coughing, still laughing.

“Ah, no, darling Alfred, I do not _have_ wrinkles,” Francis says, smile a little strained, “I believe you’re referring to the comment that sleep keeps my skin clear. Wrinkles not involved.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Fran,” Gilbert says after clearing his throat, “I think I see some lines forming around your eyes. Crow feet, you know?”

Francis shoots him a dark look, devoid of amusement, and Gilbert begins cackling again.

At that point, Elizabeta is apparently freed from the clueless customer questioning her, as she breezes towards the table with a thundercloud expression.

“Good morning, Alfred,” she says, her amicable, hostess voice not matching her expression at _all,_ “Do you plan on ordering anything, or are you just here to take up space and loiter like these bastards?”

Francis makes a wounded sound, clutching his chest, and Gilbert sticks his tongue out. Alfred just smiles sheepishly. Elizabeta’s like… _way_ intimidating.

“An, um, just like a cup of water? If that’s okay?” he asks, timidly.

“You can’t charge him for that,” Gilbert points out, and then cackles again and ducks his head as Elizabeta shoots him a deadly look.

“I’m aware, thanks,” she snaps, before turning back to Alfred with a friendly, plastic smile, “Will that be all then, Alfred?”

“Um, yeah. Thanks, Elizabeta.”

“It’s Li today,” she- he, corrects, “And as for you two-, If you don’t order something in the next five moments, I’m throwing you out, _literally._ ”

Gilbert grins a little crookedly, and blows Li a kiss, while Francis just waggles his eyebrows.

“I, for one, would not object to being manhandled by-, _Ow._ ” Francis rubs his head ruefully as Li whirls around and storms off, clutching the menu he just used to smack Francis to his chest.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed that you’re actually dating him, or concerned for your safety,” Francis comments idly to Gilbert, who’s staring after Li admiringly.

Alfred’s gaze has drifted over to the counter, where Roderich’s brought out a new cake to put into the display. It’s vanilla and has icing on it and Alfred’s not really supposed to have sugar this early in the morning but _man_ he wishes he’d asked Li for a slice of something like that. At the same time, Alfred’s pretty sure Li’s in a sour enough mood that he’d rather slice off one of Francis’s fingers than slice a cake, so maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t ask.

“Don’t worry Fran, you’ll find someone one of these days,” Gilbert teases. “Hey, only a year til Arthur’s legal! Maybe that’ll work out after all.”

Alfred’s head snaps back towards them so quickly he hears it crack. His knee jerks against the table and shakes it, causing both Gilbert and Francis to turn towards him with matching amused expression.

“Uh,” his cheeks are flaming red. “I-I mean, uh, aren’t you and Arthur just friends? And you’re like…”

Francis is only twenty-one, Alfred is reminded. Which isn’t actually that much older than Arthur is. And Arthur is so smart, and not like anyone else his age, and maybe, actually, he’d prefer someone who’s a bit older. He hates nonsense so much, he’d probably never want to date someone immature, someone younger.

“Yes, we are just friends, ignore this imbecile,” says Francis quickly, shooting Gilbert a glare. “There’s never been anything between Arthur and myself, as dear as I find him. Any flirting and cavorting is strictly platonic.”

“I’m not sure it’s possible for flirting and cavorting to be platonic,” Gilbert muses, and then winces and swears as Francis kicks him.

Thankfully, Li chooses that moment to return with Alfred’s glass of water, and sets it down in front of him along with a single sprinkled donut on a napkin.

“That’s on the house,” Li says, giving Alfred a little smile. “You deserve to be rewarded for putting up with those two.”

Alfred tries his best to return the smile, but find he can’t quite manage it. Li frowns, and glares at Gilbert and Francis. The latter actually looks a little sheepish, the former looks as guileless as a person can.

Once Li leaves, Francis turns back towards Alfred, still apologetic.

“Really, Alfred, you must ignore this one,” he says, pointing a thumb towards Gilbert. “And believe me when I say Arthur has no interest in me whatsoever. I don’t think his mind is on dating at all, he’s always preoccupied with other things. But-,” Francis raises a hand, noticing Alfred’s expression falling further, “But that’s not to say that couldn’t change in the future. And if that were to happen, it certainly wouldn’t be _me_ he’d turn to. So don’t look so down, mm _cher?_ You’re young you know, there’s plenty of time for love to bloom in your future. Just be a little patient.”

“Yeah, and Arthur’s like, English too,” Gilbert chimes in, leaning on the table, “They take forever to do _anything,_ especially when that anything involves acknowledging having emotions. You’ll wear him down eventually.”

“You think?” Alfred asks brightly. Then he frowns a little, wondering when they transitioned to vaguely implying that they might know he has a crush on Arthur, to straight up giving him advice on how to deal with his crush on Arthur.

Suddenly painfully embarrassed, Alfred buries his face in his glass of water and turns away as both Gilbert and Francis offer him words of encouragement. Seriously, does _everyone_ know about his crush on Arthur?

“Gilbert, your datemate is glaring at us from over the counter again,” Francis says, clucking his tongue, “I think he might actually make good on his threat to toss us out. What’s got him so badtempered?”

“Oh, the usual, trouble sleeping,” Gilbert says airily, “You know, the two of us have recurring insomnia. It’s not a big deal or anything. He’ll be fine tomorrow. Probably.”

Francis gives Gilbert a look that seems a little heavier than a normal look, and Gilbert responds with a look that is also heavier than a normal look, and Alfred eats his donut and wishes he didn’t feel so out of the loop all the time.

“Roderich’s playing is not doing the trick?” Francis asks, eyebrow raised.

“Everyone-, ah, the dreams are a bit more… _agitated_ than normal,” Gilbert says, rubbing the back of his head and looking to the side. “It’ll probably settle down…it’s just, you know, the forest is _extra spooky_ right now.”

Both of them look towards Alfred nervously. Alfred is looking wistfully towards the counter, where Li is cutting a piece of that vanilla cake for a customer.

“Well, Antonio better get here soon,” Francis sighs, turning back to Gilbert. “He was supposed to meet us here almost 30 minutes ago. That man, he has no sense of punctuality.”

“He and Lovino probably got stuck,” Gilbert snickers. Francis narrows his eyes at him, and slowly steeples his hands together.   
“Gilbert Beilschmidt,” he says slowly, “If you just made a bestiality joke-,”

Then he freezes, and looks sharply towards Alfred, who, to his credit, has stopped paying attention to the conversation all together, and is picking sprinkles off his napkin. He’s finished the donut, and his glass of water, and is already starting to push his chair away from the table.

“Right, thanks for the pep talk guys,” Alfred says, getting up and dusting crumbs off his clothes, “I’m actually on my way to the grocery store-, but hey, say hello to Mattie for me!”

Francis blinks, and then smiles indulgently, nodding once. Gilbert raises one hand in a casual goodbye, waving it limply.

Francis and Gilbert, Alfred muses, are generally really nice, for two college-age guys who aren’t in school and just sort of hang around all day. Gilbert’s got a bit of a rough reputation, and he does get into trouble sometimes, but he’s funny and helpful and never makes fun of Alfred in a _mean_ way. And Francis is _great._ Alfred thinks Francis is awesome! He’s super cool and super chill and it’s probably a good thing that Mattie is so mild-mannered and Angelique is so sweet because any other teens under his care would probably be running wild. Yeah, Gilbert and Francis are both pretty awesome.

It’s just, they both have a habit of talking about things- or talking _around_ things that Alfred doesn’t know about. Which is fine, because like, they _are_ ‘adults’ and stuff and Alfred’s still in high school, so it makes sense that there’d be stuff they don’t want to talk about in front of him.

But…well, when they do that, Alfred gets the same kind of feeling he gets around Arthur, sometimes. And that he gets around Mattie, sometimes. And Kiku. And Yong Soo and Mei. Their entire family, actually, including Yao. And Rajni. And Niels and Dani, of course.

 _One of these days,_ Alfred thinks as he climbs back onto his bike, _I’m going to figure out what everyone knows that I don’t._

Alfred rides down the road a little further. The sun’s still hot, and he can already feel himself sweating again. He lets his feet still as the road slopes down hill, coasting and letting the breeze push his hair back.

He cruises past the little clothing store that Feliks owns, and then backpeddles quickly, seeing a familiar figure through the window.

Feliks doesn’t have a bicycle rack, or a railing, so Alfred just leans his bike against the building as he hurries inside, pushing his hair back away from his face.

“Antonio!” he calls out to the figure still standing by the window.

It _is_ Antonio. The Spanish man is standing in front of the window, a pile of various clothing in his arms. He looks a little flustered, but happy. As he turns towards Alfred, a brilliant smile spreads across his face.

“Morning Alfred!” he says cheerfully, “How are you doing today?”

“ _I’m_ doing fine,” Alfred huffs, hands on his hips, “But Francis and Gilbert are totally waiting for you in the cakeshop! Dude, you’re shopping?”

Antonio blinks, expression going blank for a second. Then he slaps one hand against his forehead, dropping several articles of clothing as he does.

“ _Dios,_ I forgot,” he admits sheepishly, “Ah, no. I’m here with Lovino. He woke up this morning and decided his summer clothing was…mm…olddated. Out of time? _Old._ Ah, well, he wanted to buy new things, so here we are! Lovi’s in the change room right now. Alfred,” Antonio tilts his head, blinking his big green eyes at him, “Were Fran and Gil _very_ upset? Would they be okay to wait longer a little, do you think?”

Antonio, Lovino Vargas’s not so secret boyfriend, has been in the town for a handful of years now. Like, three-ish. His English has gotten a lot better. His people skills have also improved. Somedays, he actually seems to act his age, which is apparently twenty-something, and not like a massive overgrown puppy infatuated with irate Italians.

However, he’s still sort of clueless.

“Antonio,” Alfred says sternly, “Half an hour, is a _really_ long time to make people wait. Seriously, dude.”

Antonio’s face falls, and Alfred tries very hard not to feel bad.

He fails. _Damn_ those green eyes.

It’s at that moment that Lovino emerges from the change room, wearing a purple ensemble with price tags hanging off of it. He’s got an expensive-looking pair of glasses on the top of his head, and is frowning as usual.

“Toni, is this too much purple? This shade barely works with my skintone as is, and if I overdo it, I’ll end up looking like a damned plum.” Lovino says bad-temperedly, pulling at the shirt with a scowl.

Antonio’s attention snaps away from Alfred immediately, and his crestfallen expression brightens as he beams at his boyfriend.

“No Lovi, it looks fantastic on you!” he says enthusiastically, apparently forgetting Alfred exists.

“You _always_ say that,” Lovino grumbles, though his cheeks look a little red and his mouth is twitching like he’s pleased and trying not to show it. _That_ drops away, however, when he looks up and sees Alfred. He frowns again.

“Hi Lovino,” Alfred says, a little cautiously. He’s very good at riling Lovino up without meaning to. And Lovino is fun to rile up, but also, exhausting to rile up. Riling up Lovino is a commitment; he usually takes a good ten minutes to work through a tantrum, and frankly, Alfred doesn’t have the time.

“Jones,” Lovino says, sounding sour, “You don’t usually shop here?”

Felik’s store is, somehow, the closest thing the town has to high-end retailing. He makes most of the clothing himself, so it’s generally unique and high-quality, and anything that he imports is namebrand. And not like, SEARS namebrand. Like, Gucci and stuff.

Alfred scowls at Lovino. He wants to be offended but, okay, it’s true. He shops at the one Wal-Mart in town. Which might not be affiliated with the actual corporation and is probably just a cheap store that bought a Wal-Mart sign off ebay and stuck it on the front. Not that anyone here can really tell the difference.

“Not usually,” Alfred admits, “But I saw Antonio in here, and I just came from the cakeshop and he’s late for meeting Francis and Gilbert so I came in here to remind him in case he forgot, which he has, so-,”

“Ahhh _lo siento,_ Lovi,” Antonio whines, one hand on his forehead again, “I was supposed to meet them half an hour ago.”

Lovino’s face goes a little red, and he makes a ‘tch’ sound, turning his head sharply to the side.

“Well if you already promised them there’s no helping it, is there?” he grumbles, “Whatever, one more outfit, then you can go.”

Antonio’s face lights up again. “Thanks, Lovi! Which one do you want to try? I like the green one, it will make your eyes come out really nicely. And this belt, with the gold.”

Lovino turns towards Antonio with interest, a flush of colour still high on his cheeks. Antonio’s attention is on him entirely.

The two of them have never officially ‘come out’, but they’re clearly together. Not even like, dating. They’re just _together._ You just have to look at them to see how absolutely in love with Lovino Antonio is. And the fact that Antonio hasn’t been found dead in a ravine somewhere is probably as indicative as anything to how Lovino feels. He’s never been affectionate with Antonio in public, but they go almost everywhere together, and for someone like Lovino, who seems to, as a general rule, hate spending prolonged time in the presence of anyone, that can _only_ mean true love.

It makes Alfred’s stomach flutter. He’s a little jealous, of the lovestruck looks Lovino gets. Of how the two of them always seem to be close by, or near to each other. Of the fact that, whatever else, there’s no way Antonio keeps any secrets from Lovino.

_Sigh._

Alfred drifts away from them. He’s not going to stand there and nag Antonio. Antonio’s like ten years older than him! Or something. Older than Francis and Gilbert at least.

He’s about to exit the store when he sees Toris coming out of a backroom with a box in his hand. When man sees him, a smile spreads across his face, and Alfred returns it easily.

Toris and Feliks moved to town a few years ago as well. Toris is really friendly, though Feliks vacillates between being really shy and really contemptuous and dismissive. Initially, before Feliks had his store set up and established, Toris helped out on Alfred’s farm for money. He’s quite a bit older than Alfred, older than Francis for sure, but they’d formed a kind of friendship despite that.

“Alfred! Happy birthday!” he calls out, walking towards him.

“Thanks, man!” Alfred grins as Toris claps him on the back with one hand.

“Sixteen, is it? I meant to get you something, but I wasn’t sure what. Feliks said I should just get you a stack of McDonald’s coupons, but I thought I could think of something better than that.”

“Aw, dude, you don’t have to.” Alfred is intensely interested in the idea of a stack of Mcdonald’s coupons, but is absolutely not going to let Toris know that. “All I want for my birthday is for people to start taking me seriously, you know?”

Toris gives him a sympathetic look. “I do. He doesn’t look it, but Feliks is quite a bit older than me. I understand how difficult a gap in experience can be.”

Alfred nods, appreciating the sentiment. Then he realizes, with some alarm, that Toris has also implied that he knows of Alfred’s crush on Arthur.

“Toris, bro,” he says, a little desperately, “When did I mention being interested in someone older than me?”

Toris’s face blanches, and then his cheeks flush red. “Oh, well, ah, s-sorry Alfred. But um, you do right? With, um…”

He trails off, and Alfred sighs, just barely resisting the urge to drop his head into his hands.

“I get it,” he’s entirely resigned, at this point, “Everyone knows I’m totally head over heels for Arthur. Probably like, the entire town.”

“Oh no, not the entire town,” Toris says quickly. Then he smiles, a little pityingly, “But a fair number, perhaps.”

Alfred looks down at his shoes, dourly. He’s started to suspect as much. He’s _thought_ he’s been pretty subtle, but maybe like, defending Arthur constantly, and following him around, and staring at him from a distance, and constantly bringing him up in conversations with others, was not the most subtle way to go about things.

“Don’t look so down!” says Toris hurriedly, “It just means that there are a lot of people ready and willing to offer advice, if you need it?” Even he doesn’t sound convinced.

“Ugh,” Alfred can’t reply with anything more articulate than that.

It’s at this moment that Antonio and Lovino emerge from the area by the changing rooms, Antonio with a slightly diminished pile of clothes in his arms, and Lovino with wallet in hand.

“Ah, I better ring them out,” Toris says, sounding apologetic, “Shall we chat afterwards?”

“Nah,” Alfred says with a shrug, “I’ve gotta get to the grocery store, I keep getting sidetracked by- I don’t know, -everyone. Everyone seems to be outside today. And it’s not even noon!”

Toris gives him a wry smile. He claps Alfred one last time on the shoulder, before hurrying over to the checkout counter.

At this point, Alfred decides it’s better for his overall sanity if he just heads straight for the grocery store, and avoids running into any other people at all costs.

He cycles onwards, past the old gas station is owned by Mr. Adnan, who bought it with the promise of turning into…something. He was never clear on _what,_ exactly. But he’s yet to get around to it, busy with his auto-shop and small carpentry business. So the lot reminds empty, and dusty, with the tiny cornerstore at the edge of it staffed only by Mr. Adnan’s nephew. A quiet boy who’s apparently from Cyprus, a place Alfred is fairly certain doesn’t actually exist.

He cycles by the small veterinary clinic owned by Heracles’s family. It’s only just opening, and Alfred waves to Joey, the Australian dude who works there and is currently unlocking the front door, as he passes by. He doesn’t see Oliver, Joey’s cousin from New Zealand, or Winona, his other cousin from Wy, though they all technically work at the Veterinary clinic as well. Possibly, they’re all actually doing what kids are _supposed_ to do in summer, and sleeping in.

He slows his bike down as he sees a police cruiser coming down the opposite side of the road. The lights aren’t on, but Alfred pulls to the side a little anyways. He can’t see who’s driving- whether it’s Mr. Zwingli or Mr. Beilschmidt or someone else -, but he waves anyways.

 _Finally,_ Alfred pulls up to the grocery store. What’s he getting again? Milk, butter, the carton of orange juice is probably almost finished. Not too much stuff, his bike doesn’t have a basket.

The store’s not busy, but it’s not empty either, and Alfred finds himself with a handful of ‘g’morning Alfred!’ and ‘hey there kiddo’ from well-meaning folk he’s known his entire life. He smiles and nods and waves to each and every one of them, praying none of them bring up his not-so-secret crush.

Toris probably, Alfred reasons, was exaggerating. There’s like, no way that the _majority_ of the town knows about his crush on Arthur. Because, well, Arthur’s a pretty smart guy. And really good at noticing stuff, so, if more than half the town knew, then…it was pretty likely that…Arthur also…

Rounding the corner, still deep in thought, Alfred walks just about face first into a wall of immovable dense-

Ivan.

He walks smack into Ivan.

“Ah, Alfred,” Ivan says, blinking down at him, in an expression that could be either happily surprised or homicidal, “How good to see you!”

Ivan and his sisters are more recent imports, having moved to town the same year as Francis and Mattie. Unlike Francis, Mattie, and Angel, however, Alfred does not get along with Ivan. It has nothing to do with the fact that Ivan is the only one in their grade taller than him, and thus the only one who can loom over him menacingly. It is mostly to do with the fact that Ivan is unbearably, irredeemably, _creepy._ And not in a kind-of-funny-when-not-terrifying way like Dani is, and not in a chilly-but-ignorable way like Niels is, but in an absolutely in your face way. His sisters are okay…ish. Katyusha’s really nice, and makes the best icecream, like, _ever._ But Natalya’s kinda…like Ivan but scarier. More teeth baring and sharp item wielding. Also, less patience.

“Ivan,” Alfred replies sourly. “Kinda early for you to be out, isn’t it? The daytime? Not the deep dank darkness of the night?”

“Aha, if I roamed the streets at night, Katya, I think, would be displeased,” Ivan says pleasantly, “Are you, perhaps, confusing me with someone else? I think your friend with the eyebrows and the small herd of woodland creatures is more prone to such habits.”

Why does everyone keep bringing up Arthur around him? It’s like he’s got a sign taped to his forehead or something. He just wants to buy groceries in _peace_ okay? He spends enough hours out of the day thinking about his crush on Arthur without everyone and their mother immediately steering conversations towards that topic.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Alfred says sullenly, “And even if I did- he is not _prone_ to such habits. He doesn’t _roam_ the streets at night. He’s usually like, in the forest or something, and I don’t even know what you’re talking about with that last bit.” Though he sort of does. Arthur is really good with animals, and Alfred would not be surprised if he was followed around by a cloud of birds and squirrels whenever he went walking through the woods. Didn’t Dani once say he has Arthur’s number saved in his phone under ‘Actual Disney Princess’?

Ivan shrugs in an easy, ‘if you say so!’ gesture, which Alfred reads as being more than a little patronizing, which makes him frown harder.

“Whatever, goodbye Ivan,” Alfred growls, trying to push past the other boy. However, Ivan continues to be an immovable Russian wall, and Alfred barely holds back a muted shriek of frustration.

“Alfred,” Ivan’s face is still lit up and pleasant, but something firmer has entered his tone, “Watch out for your friend, yes? His forest, these days, is not so kind as it once was.”

Then he moves, no longer blocking Alfred’s way. His smile bright as ever.

 _That,_ Alfred thinks, as he hurries away, _was even weirder than usual._

Just what was _that_ supposed to mean? The forest isn’t _kind?_ Alfred’s pretty sure a forest is just a forest, and the one near the town might be very big and very deep and very lacking in any kind of formal hiking pathways, but it’s just…a forest. He doesn’t go into it much, or at all, because it’s…

Alfred can’t really explain the feeling he gets when he walks into that forest, the forest that Arthur and Kiku and all the rest go into all the time. But it’s a feeling that makes him not want to stay for any length of time. A feeling that isn’t…it’s not _fear,_ but it’s not-

Alfred shivers.

 _The forest is not kind, watch out for your friend._ What the _hell,_ Ivan.

And then, hadn’t Gilbert said something like that? The forest being weird or spookier than normal? It’s summer, the days are longer, and brighter, and everything is bright and green. Shouldn’t it be the opposite?

Alfred doesn’t understand anything.

But then again, that’s nothing new, is it?

By the time he’s grabbed the milk, and juice, and butter, and a bag of cookies, and a bag of cake mix, Alfred’s worked himself into a super, _super_ bad mood. He can’t stand it, all of a sudden. Being out of the loop. Not knowing what everyone else seems to. He doesn’t like it when people talk around him, and he hates, _hates_ that _Ivan_ of all people seems to know about it as well.

And to make matters worse, he gets to the cashier and realizes he’s forgotten his wallet.

When Alfred leaves the grocery store he is in a sincerely awful mood. He is in _such_ a bad mood. He started the day feeling sunshiney and summery and sixteeny and now he just feels…bad. He feels so bad that when he tries to kick up his bike’s kickstand he misses and smacks his toe on the concrete. He’s so mad about everything that he doesn’t even swear about it, just _glares._

“Al?”

Alfred drags his eyes up from the ground.

Mattie, his best bud in the entire world, who also happens to have basically the exact same face as him, is standing by, hands on his own bike. He blinks his big eyes in concern, and wheels closer.

“Francis texted me,” Mattie says, “To ask me to bring him some sunscreen. He’s suddenly worried about his skin for some reason-And he mentioned you were around. I thought we could go biking?”

Immediately, Alfred feels some of his terrible mood decompressing. Now instead of biking back home miserably and empty-handed, he and Matt can bike around town and Alfred can bemoan his existence and how terrible everything is always.

“Al, is something wrong?” Mattie asks, “You look upset.”

“Mattie,” Alfred pouts, “What does everyone know that I don’t?”

He’d meant it as just a sort of- just a rhetorical, ‘ugh im so sick of everything’ question that was an expression of his frustration more than an actual question. But Matthew- Matthew goes completely white. All the colour drains from his face, and he visibly flinches back.

Oh, yeah, that’s right. Alfred had nearly forgotten. _Mattie_ is in on it too.

“Right.” Alfred says, shoulders hunching, “Right, that’s what I thought.”

Panic flashes across Matthew’s face. “Alfred-,”

“No, I get it,” He sounds mad, he knows he sounds mad, he doesn’t want to sound mad at his best friend but he _is_ mad. “I get it. Everyone- you and Arthur and Kiku and Yong Soo and Gilbert and, and you and your secrets, and your always hiding things, and your, your, your stupid creepy forest!”

Matthew flinches again, face scrunched up. They’ve been friends long enough that Alfred can clearly see when he’s made Mattie upset and uncomfortable, and normally he’d feel bad about it, _really_ bad, but right now Alfred is _also_ feeling very upset and he’s uncomfortable every time people talk about the thing that they all know that he doesn't. He hates it.

“Alfred, please,” Matthew’s hands are bunched into his shirt, knuckles white. “Please we, we’re not-,” He can’t deny it, and he knows it, so he just stands there, looking as miserable as Alfred feels. Alfred doesn’t offer him anything, just folds his arms across his chest stubbornly, closed-off.

Something in Matthew’s expression shifts a little, an attempt at his own breed of stubbornness. His hands fall away from his shirt, clenching into fists at his side.

“We’re- e-everyone has secrets A-Alfred,” he says, trying for stern, “N-no one’s trying to exclude you. It’s- everyone h-has stuff they don’t want to talk about. That’s, that’s just how people are!”

Alfred should leave it. He should stop pushing. He’s upsetting Matt and he’s being an ass and his Dad’s always telling him to respect the decisions other people make and not try and push and challenge all the time and if what everyone wants is to keep him out of the loop totally forever then-

But that’s what Alfred’s been _doing._ He’s been letting everyone have their secrets and exclude him and has been pretending it doesn’t hurt his pride and his feelings. But it _does._ And he’s _tired_ of it. And he’s going to tell Mattie that, because Alfred might be hurting _his_ feelings now, but he and Kiku and Arthur have been hurting Alfred’s feelings for _years._

Matthew seems to sense the direction Alfred’s thoughts are heading, because his posture gets even more defensive, shoulders hunching higher and chin tucking downwards. Slowly, Alfred uncrosses his arms, sucking in a breath.

“Hey! Hey! Alfred! And, um, Alfred’s friend-brother-person-uhhhh Matthew! Hey!”

The moment shatters.

Feliciano, Lovino’s younger brother, in the same grade as Alfred, is skipping towards them brightly. He waves enthusiastically, smiling blindingly, bouncing forward on the toes of his shoes until he hops to a stop in front of where Alfred and Matthew are standing tensely with their bikes.

“Hi Alfred! Hi, um, um, Matthew!” he chirps, laughing a little as he continues to wave, “It’s such a nice day! The sun is so bright and there are no clouds in the sky and school is over! Aren’t you so glad it’s summer and we don’t have school? I’m meeting Ludwig at the ice cream parlour, do you want to come? Oh, are you busy? Sorry, sorry! Did I interrupt? What are you talking about?”

“Nothing!” squeaks Matthew quickly, and that’s when Alfred remembers. Of all the people in the town who seem to be on this massive, obnoxious, dumb secret…Feliciano and Ludwig are not among them. You’d think they’d be, since Gilbert’s Ludwig’s older brother and Antonio works with Feliciano’s grandfather, and Kiku’s their good friend, but Alfred has _never_ gotten the whole ‘we know something you don’t’ vibe from the two of them. In fact, he’s seen Ludwig cast the same bewildered looks at Kiku as the one Alfred gives to Arthur and Matthew.

The hurt frustration that’s been building in Alfred’s chest relaxes, just a little. That’s right, Alfred _isn’t_ the only one not in the loop. This whole entire conspiracy isn’t made to exclude him, exclusively.

“No, you didn’t interrupt,” Alfred says quickly, turning his entire body towards Feliciano. “Sure, I’d love to come get ice cream. Matt’s busy though, he’s gotta deliver some wrinklecream to Francis.”

Alfred doesn’t look to see the hurt expression he knows will be on Matt’s face. He moves his bike off the sidewalk, one foot on the peddle, and looks at Feliciano impatiently.

“Oh, oh okay!” says Feliciano. He turns to Matthew, waving again. “Um, say a good morning to Francis for me! Bye, Matthew!”

Alfred’s still not looking, so he doesn’t know if Matthew nods or shrugs, or just stares stony-faced. His stomach twists a little, but he, he _refuses_ to feel bad about this. This isn’t his fault. This is everyone _else’s_ fault.

Feliciano is humming happily when he starts walking beside Alfred’s bike, so he must not have noticed anything amiss with Matthew’s expression. Not that he would- it’s Feliciano, after all.

Feliciano is easy to get along with, and they quickly fall into a light conversation about what their summer plans are, as Alfred coasts slowly along the road and Feliciano skips merrily beside him. Feliciano is going work part time with the Edelstein’s, since he loves cooking but doesn’t have a lot of experience baking desserts. He’s also going to spend more time with his cousin Gabriel, from Seborga, since even after being in the town for a year, his English still isn’t very good. He jabbers on for about ten minutes about Ludwig’s summer job at the Karpusi’s veterinary clinic, working with the dogs, and how Feliciano can’t wait to visit him as he’s working, because he _loves_ dogs, even if he is a bit, or very, scared of them.

He goes on about his Grandpa’s cooking and church and farmwork and Antonio’s dubiously improving English and Lovino’s assertions that he was going to apply for work far far away and no one being able to tell if he was serious or not and about how excited he is to not be in school and how terrified he is of the report cards arriving in the mail any day now.

Alfred forgets, sometimes, what talking to someone his age is like when it’s not covered up in vague half-meanings and allusions and things the other person just _can’t_ talk about. He forgets what it’s like to have an _honest_ conversation. An earnest one. No secrets.

If only he had a crush on _Feliciano._ Everything would be so much easier.

Well. Maybe not. He’d have to deal with Lovino screeching at him. And also, Ludwig would probably also be less than cool with it.

Katyusha’s ice cream shop is busy. It’s nearly afternoon by now, and summer, so there are a lot of kids, Alfred’s age and younger, hanging around outside and inside. Alfred can see Katyusha herself through the glass windows of the store, smiling and moving about busily behind the counter.

Katyusha doesn’t actually _own_ the ice cream shop, she just works there, but no one seems to know who _does_ own the shop, so to everyone, it’s just Katyusha’s ice cream shop.

Ludwig is sitting inside, as Feliciano said he’d be, and sharing a booth with Kiku and Heracles Karpusi.

Heracles is in Arthur’s year, but he and Kiku are friends anyways, the way Alfred and Arthur are. Right now, he’s leaning against Kiku less than casually, and looking at Kiku from beneath hooded eyelids less than casually. Alfred hopes to hell that’s not what he looks like when he’s with Arthur.

Kiku gives a small, but genuine smile when he sees Alfred, and Alfred’s stomach twists. If he’s mad at Matthew he should, by all accounts, be mad at Kiku as well. But he’s starting to feel really bad about how he treated Matthew, and can’t find it within himself to muster a glare for Kiku.

Kiku’s gaze changes a little, head tilting to the side questioningly, like he’s noticed something’s off about Alfred. But then he’s jostled roughly by Feliciano shoving himself down between him and Ludwig, wriggling to make himself fit.

Alfred sits on the other side of Ludwig. He’d have sat beside Heracles, just because Ludwig sometimes gets sweaty and uncomfortable being in close quarters with others, but sitting beside Heracles includes an 80% chance of him passing out for several hours on your shoulder, and Alfred feels like heading home soon. He needs to go back for his wallet, so he can _finally_ get some milk for his cocoa.

_Matt probably would have leant you money if you asked._

The thought makes Alfred wince. Oh he feels so _baaad._ Why was he so mean to Mattie? Why did Feliciano have to appear and provide such an easy escape from any possibility of confronting their issues? Why had Kiku gone back to staring at him? Why were they _all_ staring at him?

“Alfred, why are you pulling at your hair?” Feliciano asks, “You’ll go bald before twenty!”

With some effort, Alfred stops tugging at his bangs in frustration and lowers his hand to the table.

It should be nice to just be sitting together with his friends from school, enjoying the summer day, and Alfred tries to lose himself in the ease of the conversation, the way he did when he and Feliciano were walking here. Right now, Feliciano is jabbering excitedly in Ludwig’s ear, and Ludwig’s looking at him in fond bemusement. Then Feliciano turns and tugs on Kiku’s arm, asking what they’re going to order, and soon, the entire table’s attention is on him, allowing Alfred to sag into his seat a little.

Feliciano and Heracles don’t seem to be bothered, by Kiku keeping secrets, or by anything at all. Heracles is still leaning on Kiku and looking at him from up under his eyelashes like he’s hung the moon, and Feliciano is crammed down between Kiku and Ludwig with a huge smile like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be.

Ludwig might be bothered by it, maybe. But Ludwig always seems bothered by something, so it doesn’t really count. Though Alfred supposes he could talk to him about his worries about Kiku if he really, really wanted to.

Does he want to though? Right now, he just wants to stop feeling so crummy. Wants to sit back and enjoy his summer. The ice cream parlour is full of kids just enjoying summer. Feliciano’s cousin Gabriel has just walked in with Winona from Wy, flirting unsuccessfully as usual. Two out of the three Dutch siblings are here; Femke is here with her younger brother, probably taking him out for a treat before heading in to work at Rajni’s clinic. One of Roderich’s cousins, the youngest, from Kugel-something or another, is sitting at a table with Lili Zwingli, sketching her on a napkin while she sips a milkshake and blushes. It’s adorable. Everyone’s doing what they’re _supposed_ to be doing in summer. Having fun. Enjoying and making the best of their summer.

Everyone except Alfred, who is, really, just sitting and stewing. It occurs to him that he can’t even order anything. Because no wallet! He guesses he could ask to borrow some money, but…

Everyone already thinks he’s irresponsible and airheaded. Ludwig definitely does, and Kiku probably thinks so as well. And confirming that by saying that he’s left his wallet at home would just…make him feel worse than he already does.

Is that why no one tell him anything? Because he’s irresponsible? Forgetful? Oblivious?

Somehow, Alfred has ended up feeling worse now than he did before. So much for the healing powers of sweet frozen treats.

“Sorry guys,” he says, rising to his feet before the menu that’s being passed around can reach him. “I’ve got to go. I’ve just remembered that, um, I forgot to water my houseplant.”

All eyes are on him once again. Feliciano pouts, looking legitimately put out.

“Awww, bye Alfred,” he says, waving sadly.

“The plant Arthur gave you?” Kiku asks, sounding vaguely disappointed. Whether that’s because Alfred’s leaving or because Alfred’s apparently not taking care of his gift properly is anyone’s guest.

“Yeah, that one,” Alfred replies, avoiding eye contact and sliding out of the booth. He can feel Kiku’s eyes on him as he stands up, and his shoulders hunch defensively. Instead of turning around to say goodbye, he keeps walking, waving one hand airily over his shoulder.

 _Second time today I’ve done that to a friend._ The sour feeling in his stomach curdles. _No wonder no one wants to tell me anything._

As a rule, Alfred shakes off bad moods and bad situations like their water and he’s a rubber jacket. But this has been bothering him since he woke up, and it’s sunk so deep into his mind that it’s all he can think about. What is everyone keeping from him? _Why_ is everyone keeping it from him? What can he do to make them _stop_ keeping it from him?

It’s a long cycle back home from here, and the day has only gotten hotter. The main street is busier now, more people out and about, enjoying the weather, going to work, enjoying the day. Alfred bikes past calls of greeting and belated birthday wishes, head ducked down. It’s so _hot._

Riding back seems to take longer than riding into town did, and by the time he’s left the main street behind, Alfred’s shirt is wet against his back, hair plastered against the side of his face. The buildings and shops have given way to the towering trees of the forest, clustered like a wall on either side of the road. The summer air is still, and dry, but even so, there’s a slight rustle in the treetops, a murmur among the leaves as he coasts by.

The shade of the leaves is looking particularly inciting, and Alfred finds himself slowly rolling to a stop. Even on such a bright day, a sunny day, the forest looks dark. It’s just- there are so many trees, so close together. Tall and towering, the leaves a thick canopy overhead. It seems a world away from the dusty, sun scorched road he’s riding on. It’s hard to imagine anyone being comfortable in there. Spending all their time within it.

It’s not hard to imagine it containing secrets.

Alfred’s grip on the handlebars of his bike tightens. There’s dust in his nose and grit in his eyes, his lips dry when he bites them.

“It’s hot,” he says out loud, even though he’s the only one around, “I’m going in the shade.”

Slowly, deliberately, he dismounts his bike, hands twisting on the handles as he turns it, and begins slowly wheeling towards the forest’s edge.

 _It’s not safe in there, Alfred._ He can imagine about ten different people telling him that. Everyone always does. When his dad, or police officers or teachers tell him to stay out of the forest, it’s one thing. But when it’s Arthur and Mattie and Kiku and _Ivan_ of all people…

A branch snaps under Alfred’s foot as he steps off the road, and he freezes.

The sound seems to echo endlessly, behind along the empty road, and before him, into the endless forest.

“It’s just a branch,” he mutters, tongue dry and heavy, “It’s just a forest.”

Alfred walks forward, a little further in, then leans his bike against a tree. It’s heavy to push, and he’s hot.

He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and goes on.

It _is_ a lot cooler in the forest. The sunlight can barely make it through the thick leaves. There’s also a chill, making the hair on Alfred’s arms and the back of his neck stand up. Goosebumps all down his legs.

He should stop walking. He’s just looking for shade, right? Well he has shade, right here, where he can still see the road, and the red metal of his bike. He should stop walking.

 _But what’s in here?_ Alfred wonders. _What’s in here that Arthur and Dani and Niels love, but is too dangerous for anyone else? What does Kiku and his family walk through every day to get to school, that no one else dares step into?_

Arthur and Dani live in the forest, and Niels and the Vargas’s live on the edge of it. But there are roads that lead to and from their houses. Hard paved roads that no one feels comfortable straying from. No one goes off the path. The only time Alfred’s been in the forest is when he’s by where they live, and he’s always stayed in sight of the house.

Alfred can still see the road behind him, but it seems distant. The ground is sloping downwards, and it’s disappearing from view.

 _Just a little further,_ he thinks. _I’ve never walked through here before. I just want to explore a bit!_

Alfred thinks he can understand, a little, why Arthur likes this place so much. It’s quiet, and secluded, and the way the trees reach up into the sky, endless and old, punches the air out of his lungs, the height of them nearly impossible to take in. It’s definitely something Arthur would appreciate, and love.

And, of course, there’s the distant trill of birds. The rustling of creatures in the underbrush. All of the small things that Arthur likes.

Alfred would get lonely in a place like this. But Arthur. A quiet place to be alone? While still being surrounded by the life and the living and all the green things that Arthur always has woven through his hair? Alfred thinks he just about finally gets it.

But.

But Alfred also understands why most people avoid this place like the plague. Why all the adults shiver and turn their eyes away from it. Why no one’s tried to expand the farmland further inwards, leaving all of this forest uncleared. Why no one hikes, or bikes, or goes into this place at all.

Because Alfred just can’t seem to shake this chill. This creeping feeling of unease, skittering up his spine and digging sharply into the base of his neck. This deeply unsettled, uncomfortable churning in his stomach.

_I am afraid._

Alfred tries to jerk away from the thought, tries to shake it away decisively, tries to refute it. To say, no, he’s a hero, he doesn’t get scared, he’s not scared of anything, _ever._

But he can’t.

The road is gone. He looks over his shoulder to look for it, to be reassured by it, and it’s _not there._ It’s gone. And it shouldn’t be. He should still be able to see it, to see the sunlight, the red of his bike…

How far has he walked? How long has he been walking? It can’t have been that long, can it?

He can’t see the road behind anymore and he’s _scared._

Oh god, is he lost? Has he gotten himself lost? That’s impossible. He’s walked in a straight line, and the road has to be right-

He turns, the trees look the same.

He turns again, the trees look the same.

Again.

Again.

 _It’s fine,_ he tells himself, _just walk backwards, exactly the way you came. Just retrace your steps._

But he’s turned around so many times he’s not sure-

He doesn’t- he can’t figure out-

 _I’m not lost,_ Alfred thinks, desperately. And then, out loud: _“_ I’m not lost!”

Alfred turns again, squints into the darkness, and decides that, yes, this is _probably_ the way he came. This is _probably_ the way to his bike and the road and home. He folds his arms across his stomach, and then decides that’s too cowardly a pose and leaves them hanging at his side, hands clenched into fists.

“I’m not lost,” he says, certain. “It’s this way.”

He walks.

And he walks.

And he walks.

He walks for ten minutes and knows he’s gone the wrong way.

He turns back, walks for five minutes, and can’t recognize anything he’s seeing.

“Okay,” he says out loud, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. It’s still a hot day in July, and he’s shivering.

“Okay,” he says again, “I am…I am a little lost. But that’s okay. That’s okay, I’ll just-,”

He cuts his words off, hugging himself.

Admitting something’s wrong is the first step in solving a problem. Alright, so he’s lost! That’s fine. He just has to…try and retrace his steps again, and if that doesn’t work, he can…climb a tree, and try and see the road.

“I’m lost, and that’s okay,” he says again, moving forward slowly. “Because people get lost all the time, and-,”

“ _This way!”_

Alfred’s head jerks to the side. Did someone…?

“I heard you’re lost!” calls out a voice, high and feminine. “This way! I’ll show you where to go!”

Oh my god. Alfred could _cry_ with relief.

“Thanks!” he calls out, voice sounding only a _little_ desperate. “Where are you?”

“This way!” calls the voice again, from his left. “Follow me!”

Alfred immediately takes off in a run towards the voice. Who is it? Which girl spends time in the forest? It’s not Mei…Linh? No, that didn’t sound like Linh. That didn’t sound like anyone he knows actually.

“Hey!” he calls out, still running, “Who are-,”

“A friend of Arthur’s!” calls the voice, a chime-like ringing to their tone, “A friend of Arthur walks through this forest!”

Alfred stumbles, foot catching on a loose branch.

“Arthur?” he echoes, confused. “What-,”

“This way!” chirps the voice, “This way! _Let me lead you.”_

The words pass through him like a thunderbolt, and his question dissolves on his tongue. His body lurches forward, like something’s dug a hook in to his chest and is pulling, and Alfred half-stumbles, half-jogs, in the direction of the voice.

“This way!”

Was it coming from in front of him? No, it’s to the side…to his right…

“This way!”

Or is it coming from behind him? And to the left?

“This way!”

The voice is just in front of him.

“This way!”

The voice is right next to his ear.

“This way!”

The voice is breathing against the back of his neck.

Alfred whirls around and stumbles again, breathing hard. There is no one behind him. Just the endless, empty forest.

The fear twisting his stomach begins turning into dread, rising up in his throat like bile, and the goosebumps give way to shivers, give way to shakes.

“ _This way~”_ the voice is mocking now, a cruel edge. “ _Let us lead you away~”_

Alfred’s feet lurch forward again, following the voice through a compulsion he can’t control. His legs are shaking and he trips, thudding painfully against the side of a tree. His chest is heaving, lungs tight and breath wheezing.

The voice calls again, closer this time, or maybe farther away, and he tries to push himself up off the tree. His hands are shaking. Something crashes behind him, branches cracking and the sound of footsteps on ground, and he can’t get his body to respond quickly enough, cringing and bracing himself against the bark.

Something grabs his shoulder roughly and whirls him around.

“ _Alfred!”_

It’s Mattie.

It’s Mattie, with his eyes wide and more purple than blue and his face pale and his breath ghosting in the air like breath never does in California.

“ _Alfred,”_ he says again. And he reaches forward and grabs Alfred’s hands.

They’re freezing. The shock of it makes Alfred jump a little. Mattie’s hands are so cold they almost hurt to hold.

“I have to get you out of here,” Mattie murmurs, his lips blue. Why are his lips so blue? Why are his hands so _cold?_ Why can’t Alfred seem to be able to get his mouth to work in order to ask any of these questions out loud?

From somewhere all around him, the voice sounds again, and Alfred shudders. He can’t hear the words, just the cadence, but it makes him pull back, away from Matt, towards whatever’s calling him.

But Mattie’s hands are suddenly like vices around his wrists. Cold as ice and just as hard. Alfred can’t get free of them.

“ _Stop it,”_ he says, his voice shaking, but louder than Alfred’s ever heard it, “ _This isn’t allowed, and you know it.”_

Alfred wants to hunch his shoulders defensively, but his control over his body seems to be at about 1/3 of normal functioning capacity. Still, he’s a little abashed. He _knows_ he’s not supposed to go into the forest. It’s just-

“ _Let him go,”_ Mattie continues, voice brittle, but hard, like a lake frozen over in winter. “ _Let him go **right now!”**_

It occurs to Alfred that he’s never heard Matthew shout before. It also occurs to Alfred that Matt might not actually be talking to him.

There’s a sound like a laugh, except not, because it sounds like glass shattering and a knife being dragged down a chalkboard and bees stinging in the inside of his ears. Matthew winces, then tenses up, nostrils flaring.

The temperature drops. Suddenly, Alfred can see his breath as well. He’s shivering not out of fear, but because he’s in a t-shirt and there’s frost all over the trees and the leaves and ground and across Matt’s glasses. There’s snow in Matt’s hair.

The voice makes a sound, a disappointed sound, still slightly mocking, then stops with what sounds like a sigh. The noise fades away, and then there’s nothing but the leaves, blowing in the breeze.

The forest is silent.

“What…?” Alfred blinks, and sways a little, suddenly unmoored.

Mattie tugs on his wrists again, and this time Alfred stumbles forward. Relief floods Matt’s expression, and he begins to walk, quickly, pulling Alfred along behind him.

As they move through the forest, Alfred feels like his ears are popping, like cotton was stuffed inside them, and now are being removed. He hadn’t even realized how weird and slushy his thoughts had grown until he can suddenly think clearly again, like a haze has been lifted from his eyes and mind.

What the _hell_ just happened?

Matthew is still pulling him along, no longer gripping his wrists but with fingers laced in his. His hands still feel abnormally cold.

“Mattie?” Alfred asks, and he’s embarrassed at how small and scared his voice sounds. His hands are still shaking.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, Alfred,” Matt says. He doesn’t turn his head to look back, and he sounds half like he’s trying to reassure himself. “We’re almost out. It’s okay.”

 _Almost out?_ Alfred blinks, and looks forward, past Mattie’s shoulders. He can see the lowlight through the trees, and orange glow that means sun. His heart thunders in his chest.

And then, they’re out. On the road. The sky orange and yellow and clear, unobscured by thick, menacing trees. The evening breeze is cool, unlike the unsettling shade of the forest, and-

Wait.

Evening?

Matthew exhales heavily, shoulders quivering. He lets go of one of Alfred’s hands and turns around, biting at his lip.

“Are- are you-,” he sucks in his bottom lip, chewing on it nervously, “Al, are you okay?”

“It was afternoon,” Alfred says, disbelieving, “I- I was only walking for like, 30 minutes tops. And it was _early afternoon._ ”

Matt’s entire expression blanches, and then tightens.

“You got lost,” he says quietly, “It’s easy to do, in there.”

“I- I _know_ I got lost Mattie but that wasn’t,” Alfred’s feeling panicked. His head is nearly spinning. “I wasn’t lost for that _long._ I-I was, there was-,”

Alfred feels like someone put his thoughts through a blender. He got lost in the forest, he thought he heard someone calling him, guiding him, and then his thoughts get stuck in a loop or a circle where he doesn’t know which way is up and he’s not sure if he’s remembering anything correctly because. Because.

“I’m sorry Alfred,” Mattie says, like this is his fault somehow. His eyes are all red, like he’s going to cry, except there are no tears, just…

Alfred reaches out without thinking, with his free hand, and brushes his fingers against Matthew’s eyelashes. He flinches back, but not before Alfred has a collection of tiny frozen droplets on his fingertips, which linger a second before melting away.

Matt’s mouth opens, then closes. Then opens again.

“Salt crystals,” he says, definitively. “I-I was crying when I was looking for you. You- you _really_ scared me Alfred!”

“What?” Alfred feels like he’s been saying that a lot.

Matt’s mouth wrinkles, like he’s going to cry again right now, but he doesn’t. He just squeezes Alfred’s hand.

“I wanted to talk to you, so I rode to Katyusha’s and they said you went home,” he says, “But I still wanted to, so I decided to ride to your house, but-,”

Matt falters, and Alfred can see it, the actual, legitimate fear in his eyes.

“I saw your bike by the road, by the forest,” his free hand twists in the fabric of his shirt. “I…I wasn’t sure I’d find you. I can’t believe you did that, Al! Went in there alone! Why don’t you ever think? Why did you-,”

“You know why,” Alfred snaps, sullen. “You, you and Kiku and Arthur and…”

He can’t even muster the energy. He’s tired. Alfred sags, and Mattie surges forward unexpectedly, wrapping his arms around Alfred’s back. Alfred lets himself slump into the hug, all his anger evaporating. He feels exhausted and unsettled and like everything in the world has shifted slightly off balance. He doesn’t know what happened to his day, where it went. Everything that happened in the forest has dissolved into a haze, and the things he can remember seem impossible. Frost on trees and laughter like knives.

“Let’s…let’s go to my place, Al,” Mattie says, withdrawing. “You can sleep over…Francis won’t mind…”

“I just…Matt, I just want to go home,” Alfred says, pushing a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to…I don’t even want to talk about anything. I just…I just want to go home right now.” He’s so tired.

Mattie winces. “I know, I know. It’s just…we’re pretty far from it, and your bike’s not here, and I don’t want you to walk alone. My house is closer.”

Alfred startles, and looks around. It’s true, they didn’t exit the forest where he’d entered. His bike is nowhere around. “Where are we?”

“Close to Arthur’s house,” Mattie says quietly.

A phantom memory surfaces. Of a voice saying, _A friend of Arthur walks through this forest!_ But that couldn’t have happened. Alfred had been alone when he’d been lost and wandering. Right? He’d been stumbling along with no idea where he was, and then Matt had found him, right?

Right.

Arthur’s house is relatively close to town, and a lake borders the town on the other side. And that’s where Mattie lives, against the water.

Matt usually sleeps over at Al’s house, since it’s just him and his dad. But Alfred has slept over at Matt’s a few times. Angel used to like to sit and watch movies with them, until her friends told her boys had cooties. Francis always cooks something delicious, and asks Alfred about his love life. But he’s already done that today, so hopefully they’ll be spared that particular indignity.

“I…okay,” He doesn’t know if it’s the heat, or having spent the day lost and wondering, but Alfred’s just…worn out. He’s tired. “Sure, I’ll come over. I…I’ll have to call my dad.”

Matt doesn’t look happy or relieved. He looks…subdued, both hands clutching his shirt.

“Okay,” says Matt.

Another breeze rips through, and the treetops behind them wave and rustle. Alfred shudders.

“Okay,” he whispers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, sorry. a bit more of a filler chapter, a bit rushed, but I think I've basically sort of introduced everyone now, even though, since it's from Alfred's pov you don't quite know who's human who's not, so that's still to be revealed! 
> 
> i've been doing a hefty amount of planning for this fic, and as a result, i'm not really going to be filling requests anymore, and I apologise for that. some stuff that's already been requested will pop up in coming chapters, but not everything that's been requested. again, I apologise. 
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope you enjoy the ones to come! ...whenever they come. whenever...that...may be....
> 
> As always, feel free to pop by my tumblr. url is the same. tag for this story is 'dinb'. the only reason this chapter is out now is because people popped into my inbox from time to time to remind me this story existed lmao

**Author's Note:**

> alright, I discovered I'm really horrible at slice of life and the only way I could write this is in drabble format. so basically, the main timeline starts in ~~March~~ April 2013, and the chapters will alternate between moments then and backstory moments in the past. I have some backstory prewritten already. 
> 
> ~~Also (this is important) you can request to see something. if you want to see what exactly character A's life in town is like, I'll do a chapter on them. If you want a chapter on Arthur chatting with Alfred's horses, I'll do a chapter on that. As long as I can fit it in without giving too much away, I'll do it. Occasionally, I might have to wait until the appropriate backstory has been posted, but I'm pretty good at being vague.~~


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